THE  GIFT  OF 

FLORENCE  V.  V.  DICKEY 

TO  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


THE  DONALD  R.  DICKEY 

LIBRARY 
OF  VERTEBRATE  ZOOLOGY 


•B  V  &M*  3. 


IN  BEAVER  WORLD.     Illustrated. 

THE  SPELL  OF  THE  ROCKIES.     Illustrated. 

WILD  LIFE  ON  THE  ROCKIES.    Illustrated. 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

BOSTOK   AND    NEW   YORK 


3n 


H?orft> 


tfl  3ffu0tration0  from 


QSoston  an&  (U^i»  ^otft 

^fliff fin  Company 


COPYRIGHT,    1913,    BY  KNOS  A.  MILLS 
ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Publishtd  March  19/3 


College 
Library 


to 


62G467 


s  book  is  the  result  of  beaver  studies  which 
cover  a  period  of  twenty-seven  years.  During 
these  years  I  have  rambled  through  every  State 
in  the  Union  and  visited  Mexico,  Canada,  and 
Alaska.  In  the  course  of  these  rambles  notice 
was  taken  of  trees,  birds,  flowers,  glaciers,  and 
bears,  and  studious  attention  devoted  to  the 
beaver.  No  opportunity  for  beaver  study  was 
missed,  and  many  a  long  journey  was  made  for 
the  purpose  of  investigating  the  conditions  in  live 
colonies  or  in  making  measurements  in  the  ruins 
of  old  ones.  These  investigations  were  made  dur- 
ing every  season  of  the  year,  and  often  a  week 
was  spent  in  one  colony.  I  have  seen  beaver  at 
work  scores  of  times,  and  on  a  few  occasions 
dozens  at  one  time. 

Beaver  have  been  my  neighbors  since  I  was  a 
boy.  At  any  time  during  the  past  twenty-five 
years  I  could  go  from  my  cabin  on  the  slope  of 
Long's  Peak,  Colorado,  to  a  number  of  colonies 


(preface 

within  fifteen  minutes.  Studies  were  carried  on  in 
these  near-by  colonies  in  spring,  summer,  autumn, 
and  winter. 

One  autumn  my  entire  time  was  spent  in  mak- 
ing observations  and  watching  the  activities  of 
beaver  in  fourteen  colonies.  Sixty-four  days  in 
succession  I  visited  these  colonies,  three  of  them 
twice  daily.  These  daily  investigations  enabled 
me  to  see  the  preparations  for  winter  from  begin- 
ning to  end.  They  also  enabled  me  to  understand 
details  which  with  infrequent  visits  I  could  not 
have  even  discovered.  During  this  autumn  I  saw 
two  houses  built  and  a  number  of  old  ones  repaired 
and  plastered.  I  also  saw  the  digging  of  one 
canal,  the  repairing  of  a  number  of  old  dams,  and 
the  building  of  two  new  ones.  In  three  of  these 
colonies  I  tallied  each  day  the  additional  number 
of  trees  cut  for  harvest.  I  saw  many  trees  felled, 
and  noted  the  manner  in  which  they  were  moved 
by  land  and  floated  by  water. 

The  greater  number  of  the  papers  in  this  book 
were  written  especially  for  it.  Parts  of  the  others 
have  been  used  in  my  books  Wild  Life  on  the 
Rockies  and  The  Spell  of  the  Rockies.  "  The  Bea- 


ver's  Engineering"  appeared  in  the  Saturday 
Evening  Post,  and  I  am  indebted  to  McClures 
for  permission  to  use  "  Beaver  Pioneers." 

Beaver  works  are  of  economical  and  educa- 
tional value  besides  adding  a  charm  to  the  wilds. 
The  beaver  is  a  persistent  practicer  of  conserva- 
tion and  should  not  perish  from  the  hills  and 
mountains  of  our  land.  Altogether  the  beaver  has 
so  many  interesting  ways,  is  so  useful,  skillful, 
practical,  and  picturesque  that  his  life  and  his 
deeds  deserve  a  larger  place  in  literature  and  in 
our  hearts. 

E.  A.  M. 


Working  like  a  Beaver i 

Our  Friend  the  Beaver 17 

The  Beaver  Past  and  Present        .        .        .        .37 

As  Others  See  Him 51 

The  Beaver  Dam 63 

Harvest  Time  with  Beavers      .        *        .        .         81 
Transportation  Facilities       .....    99 

The  Primitive  House 117 

The  Beaver's  Engineering 137 

The  Ruined  Colony .        .        .        .        .        .       151 

Beaver  Pioneers 173 

The  Colony  in  Winter 195 

The  Original  Conservationist        .        .        .        .211 

Bibliographical  Note 223 

Index    .        .        . 225 


Beaver  World Frontispiece 

A  Young  Beaver  on  the  side  of  a  Beaver  House  6 

A  Young  Beaver  Sunning  Himself  .  .  .22 
In  the  Harvest-Field  .  .  .  .  .  32 

Aspens  cut  by  Beaver. 

Beaver  Ponds 42 

A  New  Dam 66 

Part  of  an  Old  Dam  1040  Feet  Long    .  .78 

The  Spruce  Tree  House  and  Food-Pile,  October  12  92 
Lake-Bed  Canals  at  Lily  Lake,  October,  igil  .  102 
Section  of  a  J^O-foot  Canal  at  Lily  Lake  .  .  102 
Plan  of  Beaver  Colony  on  Jefferson  River,  near 

Three  Forks,  Montana 108 

An  Unplastered  and  a  Plastered  H oust          .         .124 
The  334-foot  Canal    .         .         .         .         .         .140 

Plan  of  Moraine  Colony,  with  Dead- Wood  Dam       144 

The  Dead-Wood  Dam    .        .         .        .         .        .148 

xiii 


Tlte  Moraine  House  before  and  after  Enlargement  168 

House  in  Lily  Lake 180 

House,  Food-Pile,  Pond,  and  Dam  in  Winter        .  198 

Where  Beaver  formerly  lived  and  spread  Soil  .  218 


a 


ONE  September  day  I  saw  a  number  of  beaver 
at  work  upon  a  half  -  finished  house.  One 
part  of  the  house  had  been  carried  up  about  two 
feet  above  the  water,  and  against  this  were  leaned 
numerous  sticks,  which  stood  upon  the  top  of  the 
foundation  just  above  water-level.  After  these 
sticks  were  arranged,  they  were  covered  with  turf 
and  mud  which  the  beaver  scooped  from  the  bot- 
tom of  the  pond.  In  bringing  this  earth  covering 
up,  the  beaver  invariably  came  out  of  the  water 
at  a  given  point,  and  over  a  short  slide  worn  on 
the  side  of  the  house  climbed  up  to  the  height 
where  they  were  to  deposit  their  load,  which  was 
carried  in  the  fore  paws.  Then  they  edged  round 
and  put  the  mud-ball  upon  the  house.  From  this 
point  they  descended  directly  to  the  water,  but 
when  they  emerged  with  the  next  handful,  they 
came  out  at  the  bottom  of  the  slide,  and  again 
climbed  up  it. 

The  beaver  often  does  a  large  amount  of  work 
3 


in  a  short  time.  A  small  dam  may  be  built  up  in 
a  few  nights,  or  a  number  of  trees  felled,  or  pos- 
sibly a  long  burrow  or  tunnel  clawed  in  the  earth 
during  a  brief  period.  In  most  cases,  however, 
beaver  works  of  magnitude  are  monuments  of  old 
days,  and  have  required  a  long  time  to  construct, 
being  probably  the  work  of  more  than  one  gen- 
eration. It  is  rare  for  a  large  dam  or  canal  to  be 
constructed  in  one  season.  A  thousand  feet  of 
dam  is  the  accumulated  work  of  years.  An  aged 
beaver  may  have  lived  all  his  life  in  one  locality, 
born  in  the  house  in  which  his  parents  were  born, 
and  he  might  rise  upon  the  thousand-foot  dam 
which  held  his  pond  and  say,  "  My  grandparents 
half  a  dozen  centuries  ago  commenced  this  dam, 
and  I  do  not  know  which  one  of  my  ancestors 
completed  it." 

Although  the  beaver  is  a  tireless  and  an  effect- 
ive worker,  he  does  not  work  unless  there  is  need 
to  do  so.  Usually  his  summer  is  a  rambling  vaca- 
tion spent  away  from  home.  His  longest  period 
of  labor  is  during  September  and  October,  when 
the  harvest  is  gathered  and  general  preparations 
made  for  the  long  winter.  Baby  beavers  take  part 
4 


in  the  harvest-getting,  though  probably  without 
accomplishing  very  much.  During  most  winters 
he  has  weeks  of  routine  in  the  house  and  ponds 
with  nothing  urgent  to  do  except  sleep  and  eat. 

He  works  not  only  tooth  and  nail,  but  tooth 
and  tail.  The  tail  is  one  of  the  most  conspicuous 
organs  of  the  beaver.  Volumes  have  been  written 
concerning  it.  It  is  nearly  flat,  is  black  in  color, 
and  is  a  convenient  and  much-used  appendage. 
It  serves  for  a  rudder,  a  stool,  a  prop,  a  scull,  and 
a  signal  club.  It  may  be  used  for  a  trowel,  but  I 
have  never  seen  it  so  used.  It  serves  one  purpose 
that  apparently  has  not  been  discussed  in  print ; 
on  a  few  occasions  I  have  seen  a  beaver  carry  a 
small  daub  of  mud  or  some  sticks  clasped  between 
the  tail  and  the  belly.  It  gives  this  awkward  ani- 
mal increased  awkwardness  and  even  an  uncouth 
appearance  to  see  him  humped  up,  with  tail 
tucked  between  his  legs,  in  order  to  clasp  some- 
thing between  it  and  his  belly. 

He  is  accomplished  in  the  use  of  arms  and 
hands.  With  hands  he  is  able  to  hold  sticks  and 
handle  them  with  great  dexterity.  Like  any  claw- 
ing animal  he  uses  his  hands  or  fore  paws,  to  dig 
5 


holes  or  tunnels  and  to  excavate  burrows  and 
water-basins.  His  hind  feet  are  the  chief  propel- 
ling power  in  swimming,  although  the  tail,  which 
may  be  turned  almost  on  edge  and  is  capable  of 
diagonal  movement,  is  sometimes  brought  into 
play  as  a  scull  when  the  beaver  is  at  his  swiftest. 
In  the  water  beaver  move  about  freely  and  ap- 
parently with  the  greatest  enjoyment.  They  are 
delightfully  swift  and  agile  swimmers,  in  decided 
contrast  with  their  awkward  slowness  upon  the 
ground.  They  can  swim  two  hundred  yards  under 
water  without  once  coming  to  the  surface,  and 
have  the  ability  to  remain  under  water  from  five 
to  ten  minutes.  On  one  occasion  a  beaver  re- 
mained under  water  longer  than  eleven  minutes, 
and  came  to  the  top  none  the  worse,  apparently, 
for  this  long  period  of  suspended  breathing. 

It  is  in  standing  erect  that  the  beaver  is  at  his 
best.  In  this  attitude  the  awkwardness  and  the 
dull  appearance  of  all-fours  are  absent,  and  he 
is  a  statue  of  alertness.  With  feet  parallel  and  in 
line,  tail  at  right  angles  to  the  body  and  resting 
horizontally  on  the  ground,  and  hands  held  against 
the  breast,  he  has  the  happy  and  childish  eager- 
6 


ti&t 

ness  of  a  standing  chipmunk,  and  the  alert  and 
capable  attitude  of  an  erect  and  listening  grizzly 
bear. 

The  beaver  is  larger  than  most  people  imagine. 
Mature  male  specimens  are  about  thirty -eight 
inches  in  length  and  weigh  about  thirty -eight 
pounds,  but  occasionally  one  is  found  that  weighs 
seventy  or  more  pounds.  Ten  mature  males  which 
I  measured  in  the  Rocky  Mountains  showed  an 
average  -length  of  forty  inches,  with  an  average 
weight  of  forty-seven  pounds.  The  tails  of  these 
ten  averaged  ten  inches  in  length,  four  and  a 
half  inches  in  width  across  the  centre,  and  one 
inch  in  thickness.  Behind  the  shoulders  the 
average  circumference  was  twenty  -  one  inches, 
and  around  the  abdomen  twenty-eight.  Ten  ma- 
ture females  which  I  measured  were  only  a  trifle 
smaller. 

There  are  twenty  teeth ;  in  each  jaw  there  are 
eight  molars  and  two  incisors.  The  four  front 
teeth  of  the  beaver  are  large,  orange  -  colored, 
strong,  and  have  a  self-sharpening  edge  of  enamel. 
The  ears  are  very  short  and  rounded.  The  sense 
of  smell  appears  to  be  the  most  highly  developed 
7 


3n 

of  the  beaver's  senses.  Next  to  this,  that  of  hear- 
ing appears  to  be  the  most  informational.  The 
eyes  are  weak.  The  hind  feet  are  large  and 
webbed,  and  resemble  those  of  a  goose.  The  sec- 
ond claw  of  each  hind  foot  is  double,  and  is  used 
in  combing  the  fur  and  in  dislodging  the  parasites 
from  the  skin.  The  fore  paws  of  the  beaver  are 
handlike,  and  have  long,  strong  claws.  They  are 
used  very  much  after  the  fashion  in  which  mon- 
keys use  their  hands,  and  serve  a  number  of 
purposes. 

The  color  of  the  beaver  is  a  reddish  brown, 
sometimes  shading  into  a  very  dark  brown.  Oc- 
casional specimens  are  white  or  black.  The 
beaver  is  not  a  handsome  animal,  and  when  in 
action  on  the  land  he  is  awkward.  The  black 
skin  which  covers  his  tail  appears  to  be  covered 
with  scales;  the  skin  merely  has  this  form  and 
appearance,  the  scales  do  not  exist.  The  tail 
somewhat  resembles  the  end  of  an  oar. 

The  all-important  tools  of  this  workman  are 

his  four  orange  -  colored  front  teeth.   These  are 

edge-tools  that  are  adaptable  and  self-sharpening. 

They  are  set  in  strong  jaws  and  operated  by 

8 


Ufa  a 

powerful  muscles.  Thus  equipped,  he  can  easily 
cut  wood.  These  teeth  grow  with  surprising 
rapidity.  If  accident  befalls  them,  so  that  the 
upper  and  the  lower  fail  to  bear  and  wear,  they 
will  grow  by  each  other  and  in  a  short  time  be- 
come of  an  uncanny  length.  I  have  found  several 
dead  beaver  who  had  apparently  died  of  starvation; 
their  teeth  overlapped  with  jaws  wide  open  and 
thus  prevented  their  procuring  food.  For  a  time 
I  possessed  an  overgrown  tooth  that  was  crescent- 
shaped  and  a  trifle  more  than  six  inches  long. 

Pounds  considered,  the  beaver  is  a  powerful 
animal,  and  over  a  rough  trail  will  drag  objects  of 
twice  his  own  weight  or  roll  a  log-section  of  gigan- 
tic size.  Up  a  strong  current  he  will  tow  an  eighty- 
or  one-hundred-pound  sapling  without  apparent 
effort.  Three  or  four  have  rolled  a  one-hundred- 
and-twenty-pound  boulder  into  place  in  the  dam. 
Commonly  he  does  things  at  opportune  times 
and  in  the  easiest  way.  His  energy  is  not  wasted 
in  building  a  dam  where  one  is  not  needed  nor 
in  constructive  work  in  times  of  high  water.  He 
accepts  deep  water  as  a  matter  of  fact  and  con- 
structs dams  to  make  shallow  places  deep. 
9 


3 


n 


Beaver  food  is  largely  inner  bark  of  deciduous 
or  broad  -leaved  trees.  Foremost  among  these 
trees  which  they  use  for  food  is  the  aspen,  al- 
though the  cottonwood  and  willow  are  eaten 
almost  as  freely.  The  bark  of  the  birch,  alder, 
maple,  box-elder,  and  a  number  of  other  trees 
is  also  used.  Except  in  times  of  dire  emergency 
the  beaver  will  not  eat  the  bark  of  the  pine, 
spruce,  or  fir  tree.  It  is  fortunate  that  the  trees 
which  the  beaver  fell  and  use  for  food  or  build- 
ing purposes  are  water-loving  trees,  which  not 
only  sprout  from  both  stump  and  root,  but  grow 
with  exceeding  rapidity.  Among  other  lesser 
foods  used  are  berries,  mushrooms,  sedge,  grass, 
and  the  leaves  and  stalks  of  a  number  of  plants. 
In  winter  dried  grass  and  leaves  are  sometimes 
used,  and  in  this  season  the  rootstocks  of  the  pond- 
lily  and  the  roots  of  the  willow,  alder,  birch,  and 
other  water-loving  trees  that  may  be  got  from  the 
bottom  of  the  pond.  Beaver  are  vegetarians  ;  they 
do  not  eat  fish  or  flesh. 

Apparently  beaver  prefer  to  cut  trees  that  are 
less  than  six  inches  in  diameter,  and  where  slen- 
der poles  abound  it  is  rare  for  anything  to  be  cut 
10 


Tl?orfitn<5  ftfi*  a 

of  more  than  four  inches.  But  it  is  not  uncom- 
mon to  see  trees  felled  that  are  from  twelve  to 
fifteen  inches  in  diameter.  In  my  possession  are 
three  beaver  -  cut  stumps  each  of  which  has  a 
greater  diameter  than  eighteen  inches,  the  largest 
being  thirty-four  inches.  The  largest  beaver-cut 
stump  that  I  have  ever  measured  was  on  the 
Jefferson  River  in  Montana,  near  the  mouth  of 
Pipestone  Creek.  This  was  three  feet  six  inches 
in  diameter. 

The  beaver  sits  upright  with  fore  paws  against 
the  tree,  or  clasping  it ;  half  squatting  on  his  hind 
legs,  with  tail  either  extending  behind  as  a  prop 
or  folded  beneath  him  as  a  seat,  he  tilts  his  head 
from  side  to  side  and  makes  deep  bites  into  the 
tree  about  sixteen  inches  above  the  ground.  In 
the  overwhelming  majority  of  beaver-cut  trees 
that  I  have  seen,  most  of  the  cutting  was  done 
from  one  side, — from  one  seat  as  it  were.  Though 
the  notch  taken  out  was  rudely  done,  it  was  after 
the  fashion  of  the  axe -man.  The  beaver  bites 
above  and  below,  then,  driving  his  teeth  behind 
the  piece  thus  cut  off,  will  wedge,  pry,  or  pull  out 
the  chip.  Ofttimes  in  doing  this  he  appears  to 
ii 


use  his  jaw  as  a  lever.  With  the  aspen,  or  with 
other  trees  equally  soft,  about  one  hour  is  re- 
quired to  gnaw  down  a  four-inch  sapling.  With 
one  bite  he  will  snip  off  a  limb  from  half  to  three 
quarters  of  an  inch  in  diameter. 

After  a  tree  is  felled  on  land,  the  limbs  are  cut 
off  and  the  trunk  is  gnawed  into  sections.  The 
length  of  these  sections  appears  to  depend  upon 
the  size  of  the  tree-trunk  and  also  the  distance 
to  the  water,  the  number  of  beaver  to  assist  in 
its  transportation,  and  the  character  of  the  trail. 
Commonly  a  six-  or  eight-inch  tree  is  cut  into 
lengths  of  about  four  to  six  feet.  If  the  tree  falls 
into  the  water  of  the  pond  or  the  canal,  it  is,  if  the 
limbs  are  not  too  long,  transported  butt  foremost 
to  the  desired  spot  in  its  uncut,  untrimmed  en- 
tirety. Ofttimes  with  a  large  tree  the  trunk  is  left 
and  only  the  limbs  taken. 

The  green  wood  which  the  beaver  uses  for  his 
winter's  food  -  supply  is  stored  on  the  bottom  of 
the  pond.  How  does  he  sink  it  to  the  bottom  ? 
There  is  an  old  and  oft-repeated  tale  which  says 
that  the  beaver  sucks  the  air  from  the  green  wood 
so  as  to  sink  it  promptly.  Another  tale  has  it  that 
12 


the  beaver  dives  to  the  bottom  carrying  with  him 
a  green  stick  which  he  thrusts  into  the  mud  and 
it  is  thus  anchored.  Apparently  the  method  is  a 
simple  one.  The  green  wood  stored  is  almost  as 
heavy  as  water,  and  once  in  the  pond  it  becomes 
water-logged  and  sinks  in  a  short  time ;  however, 
the  first  pieces  stored  are  commonly  large,  heavy 
chunks,  which  are  forced  to  the  bottom  by  piling 
others  on  top  of  them.  Frequently  the  first  few 
pieces  of  the  food-pile  consist  of  entire  trees,  limbs 
and  all.  These  usually  are  placed  in  a  rude  circle 
with  butts  inward  and  tops  outward.  This  forms 
an  entangling  foundation  which  holds  in  place  the 
smaller  stuff  piled  thereon. 

Most  willows  by  beaver  colonies  are  small  and 
comparatively  light.  These  do  not  sink  readily, 
are  not  easily  managed,  and  are  rarely  used  in 
the  bottom  of  the  pile.  Commonly,  when  these 
light  cuttings  are  gathered  into  the  food-pile,  they 
are  laid  on  top,  where  numerous  up -thrusting 
limbs  entangle  and  hold  them.  The  foundation 
and  larger  portion  of  the  food-pile  are  formed  of 
heavy  pieces  of  aspen,  alder,  or  some  other  stream- 
side  tree,  which  cannot  be  moved  out  of  place  by 
13 


an  ordinary  wind  or  water  -  current  and  which 
quickly  sink  to  the  bottom. 

Among  enemies  of  this  fur-clad  fellow  are  the 
wolverine,  the  otter,  the  lion,  the  lynx,  the  coyote, 
the  wolf,  and  the  bear.  Hawks  and  owls  occasion- 
ally capture  a  young  beaver.  Beaver  spend  much 
time  dressing  their  fur  and  bathing,  as  they  are 
harassed  by  lice  and  other  parasites.  At  rare  in- 
tervals they  are  afflicted  with  disease.  They  live 
from  twelve  to  fifteen  years  and  sometimes  longer. 
Man  is  the  worst  enemy  of  the  beaver. 

A  thousand  trappers  unite  to  tell  the  same 
pitiable  tale  of  a  trapped  beaver's  last  moments. 
If  the  animal  has  not  succeeded  in  drowning  him- 
self or  tearing  off  afoot  and  escaping,  the  trapper 
smashes  the  beaver's  head  with  his  hatchet.  The 
beaver,  instead  of  trying  to  rend  the  man  with 
sharp  cutting  teeth,  raises  himself  and  with  up- 
raised hand  tries  to  ward  off  the  death-blow.  In- 
stead of  one  blow,  a  young  trapper  frequently  has 
to  give  two  or  three,  but  the  beaver  receives  them 
without  a  struggle  or  a  sound,  and  dies  while 
vainly  trying  to  shield  his  head  with  both  hands. 

Justly  renowned  for  his  industry,  the  beaver 
M 


is  a  master  of  the  fine  art  of  rest.  He  has  many 
a  vacation  and  conserves  his  energies.  He  keeps 
his  fur  clean  and  his  house  in  a  sanitary  condi- 
tion. Ever  in  good  condition,  he  is  ready  at  all 
times  for  hard  work  and  is  capable  of  efficient 
work  over  long  periods.  He  is  ready  for  emergen- 
cies. 

As  animal  life  goes,  that  of  the  beaver  stands 
among  the  best.  His  life  is  full  of  industry  and 
is  rich  in  repose.  He  is  home-loving  and  avoids 
fighting.  His  lot  is  cast  in  poetic  places. 

The  beaver  has  a  rich  birthright,  though  born 
in  awindowless  hut  of  mud.  Close  to  the  prime- 
val place  of  his  birth  the  wild  folk  of  both  woods 
and  water  meet  and  often  mingle.  Around  are  the 
ever-changing  and  never-ending  scenes  and  si- 
lences of  the  water  or  the  shore.  Beaver  grow  up 
with  the  many-sided  wild,  playing  amid  the  bril- 
liant flowers  and  great  boulders,  in  the  piles  of 
driftwood  and  among  the  fallen  logs  on  the  for- 
est's mysterious  edge.  They  learn  to  swim  and 
slide,  to  dive  quickly  and  deeply  from  sight,  to 
sleep,  and  to  rest  moveless  in  the  sunshine ;  ever 
listening  to  the  strong,  harmonious  stir  of  wind 
15 


3 


n 


and  water,  living  with  the  stars  in  the  sky  and  the 
stars  in  the  pond  ;  beginning  serious  life  when 
brilliant  clouds  of  color  enrich  autumn's  hills; 
helping  to  harvest  the  trees  that  wear  the  robes 
of  gold,  while  the  birds  go  by  for  the  southland 
in  the  reflective  autumn  days.  If  Mother  Nature 
should  ever  call  me  to  live  upon  another  planet, 
I  could  wish  that  I  might  be  born  a  beaver,  to 
inhabit  a  house  in  the  water. 


Out  Jnmb  t$t 


jfrienb 


ONE  bright  autumn  afternoon  I  peered  down 
into  a  little  meadow  by  a  beaver  pond. 
This  meadow  was  grass-covered  and  free  from 
willows.  In  it  seven  or  eight  beaver  were  at  work 
along  a  new  canal.  Each  kept  his  place  and  ap- 
peared to  have  a  section  in  which  he  did  his  dig- 
ging. For  more  than  half  an  hour  I  watched 
them  clawing  out  the  earth  and  grass-roots  and 
lifting  it  out  in  double  handfuls  and  piling  it  in 
an  orderly  line  along  the  canal  -bank.  While  I 
was  watching  a  worker  at  one  end  of  this  line, 
two  others  clinched  in  a  fight.  The  fighters  made 
no  sound  except  a  subdued  guttural  mumbling 
as  they  rolled  about  in  a  struggle.  The  other 
workers,  to  my  astonishment,  paid  not  the  slightest 
attention  to  this  fight,  but  each  attended  to  his 
own  affairs.  After  two  or  three  minutes  the  bel- 
ligerents broke  away  ;  one  squatted  down  breath- 
ing heavily,  while  the  other,  with  bloody  tail, 
dragged  himself  off  and  plunged  into  the  pond. 
19 


3n 

This  was  the  first  beaver  fight  that  I  had  ever 
seen. 

Beaver  may  well  be  called  the  silent  workers. 
No  matter  how  numerous,  or  crowded,  or  busy 
they  are,  their  work  goes  on  without  a  word  and 
apparently  without  a  sign.  Although  I  have  seen 
them  at  work  scores  of  times,  in  the  twilight  and 
in  the  daylight,  singly,  in  pairs,  and  by  the  doz- 
ens, doing  the  many  kinds  of  work  which  beaver 
perform,  yet  this  work  has  always  gone  quietly 
and  without  any  visible  evidences  of  manage- 
ment. Each  one  is  capable  of  acting  independ- 
ently. Since  the  quality  of  his  work  improves  as 
the  beaver  increases  his  experience,  it  appears 
natural  and  probable  that  each  colony  of  beaver 
has  a  leader  who  plans  and  directs  the  work.  I 
am  familiar  with  a  number  of  instances  which 
strongly  indicate  leadership.  In  times  of  emerg- 
ency, when  an  entire  colony  is  forced  to  emigrate, 
a  beaver  —  and  usually  an  aged  one  —  takes  the 
lead,  and  wherever  he  goes  the  others  willingly 
follow. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  custom  of  beaver 
in  the  past,  at  present  large  numbers  sometimes 
20 


cooperate  in  accomplishing  community  work.  It 
used  to  be  believed,  and  possibly  it  was  true,  that 
only  the  members  of  a  family,  or  the  beaver  of 
one  house,  united  in  doing  the  general  work  of 
the  colony.  It  was  a  common  belief  that  seven 
beaver  inhabited  a  house ;  perhaps  eight  was  the 
number  of  the  Rocky  Mountain  region.  At  the 
present  time  the  number  in  a  house  is  from  one 
to  thirty. 

Beaver  have  been  driven  from  most  of  the 
streams  and  lake-shores,  and  now  maintain  them- 
selves with  difficulty  in  the  places  which  they 
inhabit.  In  surviving  they  probably  have  had  to 
sacrifice  a  few  old  customs  and  to  adopt  some 
new  ones,  and  it  is  likely  that  these  changes 
sometimes  call  for  larger  houses  so  as  to  care  for 
the  increased  number  of  beaver  which  conditions 
now  compel  to  live  in  one  locality.  A  number  of 
instances  have  come  under  my  notice  where  bea- 
ver were  driven  from  their  colony  either  by  fire 
or  by  the  aggressiveness  of  trappers ;  these  moved 
on  to  other  scenes,  where  they  cast  their  lot  with 
the  beaver  of  another  colony,  and  apparently 
were  received  with  every  welcome.  Immediately 
21 


after  the  arrival  of  the  immigrants,  enlargements 
were  at  once  commenced,  apparently  to  accom- 
modate the  new-comers  permanently. 

One  autumn,  while  following  the  Lewis  and 
Clark  trail  with  a  pack  horse  in  western  Mon- 
tana, I  made  camp  one  evening  with  a  trapper 
who  gave  me  a  young  beaver.  He  was  about  one 
month  old,  and  ate  twigs  and  bark  as  naturally 
as  though  he  had  long  eaten  them.  I  named  him 
"  Diver,"  and  in  a  short  time  he  was  as  chummy 
as  a  young  puppy.  Of  an  evening  he  played  about 
the  camp  and  often  swam  in  the  near-by  water. 
At  times  he  played  at  dam -building,  and  fre- 
quently displayed  his  accomplishment  of  felling 
wonderful  trees  that  were  about  the  size  of  a 
lead  pencil.  He  never  failed  to  come  promptly 
when  I  whistled  for  him.  At  night  he  crouched 
near  my  camp,  usually  packing  himself  under  the 
edge  of  the  canvas  on  which  I  spread  my  bed- 
ding. Atop  the  pack  on  the  horse's  back  he  trav- 
eled, —  a  ride  which  he  evidently  enjoyed.  He 
was  never  in  a  hurry  to  be  taken  off,  and  at  mov- 
ing time  he  was  always  waiting  eagerly  to  be 
lifted  on.  As  soon  as  he  noticed  me  arranging 
22 


Cut  jfrienb  t$t 


the  pack,  he  came  close,  and  before  I  was  quite 
ready  for  him,  he  rose  up,  extending  his  hands  in 
rapid  succession  beggingly,  and  with  a  whining 
sort  of  muttering  pleaded  to  be  lifted  at  once  to 
his  seat  on  the  pack. 

He  had  a  bad  fright  one  evening.  About  one 
hour  before  sundown  we  had  encamped  as  usual 
alongside  a  stream.  He  entered  the  water  and 
after  swimming  about  for  a  time,  taking  a  dozen 
or  so  merry  dives,  he  crossed  to  the  opposite 
side.  In  plain  view,  only  fifty  feet  away,  I  watched 
him  as  he  busily  dug  out  roots  of  the  Oregon 
grape  and  then  stopped  leisurely  to  eat  them. 
While  he  was  thus  engaged,  a  coyote  made  a  dash 
for  him  from  behind  a  boulder.  Diver  dodged, 
and  the  coyote  missed.  Giving  a  wail  like  a 
frightened  child,  my  youngster  rolled  into  the 
stream  and  dived.  Presently  he  scrambled  out 
of  the  water  near  me  and  made  haste  to  crawl 
under  my  coat-tail  behind  the  log  on  which  I  sat. 

The  nearest  beaver  pond  was  a  quarter  of  a 

mile  upstream,  yet  less  than  five  minutes  had 

elapsed  from  the  time  of  Diver's  cry  when  two 

beaver  appeared,  swimming  low  and  cautiously 

23 


in  the  stream  before  me.  A  minute  later  another 
came  in  sight  from  downstream.  All  circled 
about,  swimming  cautiously  with  heads  held  low 
in  the  water.  One  scented  the  place  where  the 
coyote  had  attacked  Diver,  and  waddled  out  and 
made  a  sniffing  examination.  Another  came 
ashore  at  the  spot  where  Diver  came  out  to  me. 
Apparently  his  eyes  told  him  I  was  a  part  of  the 
log,  but  his  nose  proclaimed  danger.  After  three 
or  four  hesitating  and  ineffectual  attempts  to  re- 
treat, he  plucked  up  courage  and  rose  to  full 
height  on  hind  legs  and  tail  to  stare  eagerly  at 
me.  With  head  well  up  and  fore  paws  drooping, 
he  held  the  gaze  for  several  seconds  and  then 
gave  a  low  whistle. 

At  this,  Diver  came  forth  from  behind  my 
coat  to  see  what  was  going  on.  The  old  one 
started  forward  to  meet  him,  but  on  liaving  a 
good  look  at  me  whirled  and  made  a  jumping 
dive  into  the  water,  whacking  the  surface  with 
his  tail  as  he  disappeared.  Instantly  there  fol- 
lowed two  or  more  splashes  and  a  number  of 
tail-whacks  upon  the  water,  as  though  a  beaver 
rescue  party  were  beating  a  retreat. 
24 


Out  jjfrienb 

At  the  end  of  my  outing  Diver  became  the 
pet  of  two  pioneer  children  on  the  bank  of  the 
Snake  River.  He  followed  the  children  about 
and  romped  with  them.  At  three  years  of  age  he 
was  shot  by  a  visiting  hunter. 

My  experience  with  Diver  and  other  beaver 
pets  leads  me  to  believe  that  beaver  are  easily 
domesticated.  One  morning  in  northern  Idaho, 
the  family  with  whom  I  had  spent  the  night  took 
me  out  to  see  a  beaver  colony  that  was  within  a 
stone's  throw  of  their  fireplace.  Three  beaver 
came  out  of  the  water  within  ten  feet  of  us  to  eat 
scraps  of  bread  which  the  children  threw  on  the 
grass  for  them. 

One  day  I  placed  myself  between  three  young 
beaver,  who  were  eating  on  land,  and  the  river 
out  of  which  they  came.  They  were  on  one  of 
the  rocky  borders  of  the  Colorado  River  in  the 
depths  of  the  upper  Grand  Canon.  They  at- 
tempted to  get  by  me,  but  their  efforts  were  not 
of  the  "  do  or  die  "  nature.  Presently  their  mother 
came  to  the  rescue  and  attempted  to  attract  my 
attention  by  floating  in  the  water  near  me  in 
a  terribly  crippled  condition.  I  had  seen  many 
25 


birds  and  a  few  beaver  try  that  clever  ruse ;  so  I 
allowed  it  to  go  on,  hoping  to  see  another  act. 
Another  followed. 

In  it  an  old  male  beaver  appeared.  He  swam 
easily  downstream  until  within  a  few  yards  of 
me  and  then  dived,  apparently  frightened.  But 
presently  he  reappeared  near  by  and  dived  again. 
While  I  was  watching  him,  the  youngsters  edged 
a  few  yards  nearer  the  river.  To  stop  them  and 
prolong  the  exhibition,  I  advanced  close  to  them 
as  though  to  grab  them.  At  this  the  mother 
beaver  struggled  out  of  the  water  and  set  up  a 
tumbling  and  rolling  so  close  to  me  that  I  thought 
to  catch  her  for  examination.  She  dodged  right 
and  left  and  reached  the  water.  While  this  was 
going  on,  the  youngsters  escaped  into  the  river. 
Mother  beaver  instantly  recovered,  and  as  she 
dived  gave  the  water  a  scornful  whack  with  her 
tail. 

The  beaver  is  not  often  heard.  He  works  in 
silence.  When  he  pauses  from  his  work,  he  sits 
meditatively,  like  a  philosopher.  At  times,  how- 
ever, when,  in  traveling,  beaver  are  separated  from 
one  another,  they  give  a  strange  shrill  whistle  or 
26 


Our  Jnenb  f  0e 


call.  Occasionally  this  whistle  appears  to  be  a 
call  of  alarm,  suspicion,  or  warning.  Sometimes 
when  alarmed,  a  young  beaver  gives  a  shrill  and 
frightened  cry  not  unlike  that  of  a  lost  human 
child.  On  a  few  occasions  I  have  heard,  while 
listening  near  a  beaver  house  in  the  early  sum- 
mer, something  of  a  subdued  concert  going  on 
inside,  a  purring,  rhythmic  melody.  They  have 
a  kind  of  love  ditty  also.  This  is  a  rhythmic 
murmur  and  sigh,  very  appealing,  and  it  seems 
strangely  elemental  as  it  floats  across  the  beaver 
pond  in  the  twilight. 

It  is  probable  that  beaver  mate  for  life.  All 
that  is  known  concerning  their  ways  indicates 
that  they  are  good  parents.  The  young  are  usu- 
ally born  during  the  month  of  April.  The  number 
varies  from  one  to  eight;  probably  four  is  the 
number  most  common.  A  short  time  before  the 
birth  of  the  youngsters,  the  mother  invites  the 
father  to  leave,  or  compels  him  to  do  so,  —  or  he 
may  go  voluntarily,  —  and  she  has  possession  of 
the  house  or  burrow,  probably  alone,  at  the  time 
the  youngsters  are  born.  Their  eyes  are  open 
from  the  beginning,  and  in  less  than  two  weeks 
27 


3n 

they  appear  in  the  water  accompanied  by  the 
mother.  Often  I  have  investigated  beaver  colonies 
endeavoring  to  determine  the  number  of  young- 
sters at  a  birth.  Many  times  there  were  four  of 
these  furry,  serious  little  fellows  near  the  house 
on  a  log  that  was  thrust  up  through  the  water. 
At  other  times  from  one  to  eight  youngsters 
sunned  themselves  on  the  top  of  the  rude  home. 

One  May,  in  examining  beaver  colonies,  I  saw 
three  sets  of  youngsters  in  the  Moraine  Colony. 
They  numbered  three,  and  two,  and  five.  One 
mother  in  another  colony  proudly  exhibited  eight, 
while  still  another,  who  had  been  harassed  all 
winter  by  trappers  and  who  lived  in  a  burrow  in 
the  bank,  could  display  but  one. 

It  is  not  uncommon  for  young  orphan  beavers 
to  be  cared  for  and  adopted  by  another  mother 
beaver.  I  have  notes  of  three  mothers  who,  with 
children  of  their  own,  at  once  took  charge  of 
orphans  left  by  the  death  of  a  neighbor.  One 
June  a  mother  beaver  was  killed  near  my  camp. 
Her  children  escaped.  The  following  evening  a 
new  mother,  with  four  children  of  her  own  adopted 
them  and  moved  from  her  own  home,  a  quarter 
28 


Our  ^rienb  t$t 


of  a  mile  distant,  to  the  home  of  her  dead  neigh- 
bor and  there  brought  all  the  youngsters  up. 

Beaver  have  great  fun  while  growing  up.  Posted 
on  the  edge  of  the  house,  they  nose  and  push  each 
other  about,  ofttimes  tumbling  one  another  into 
the  water.  In  the  water  they  send  a  thousand 
merry  ripples  to  the  shore,  as  they  race,  wrestle, 
and  dive  in  the  pond.  They  play  on  the  house, 
in  the  pond,  and  in  the  sunshine  and  shadows  of 
the  trees  along  the  shore. 

Beaver  are  mature  the  third  summer  of  their 
lives,  and  at  this  time  they  commonly  leave  the 
parental  home,  pair,  and  begin  life  for  themselves. 
There  are  stories  to  the  effect  that  the  parents  of 
the  youthful  home-builders  accompany  the  child- 
ren to  new  scenes,  help  them  select  a  building- 
site,  and  assist  in  the  construction  of  the  new 
house  and  dam.  After  this  the  parents  return 
home.  This  probably  is  occasionally  true.  Any- 
way I  once  saw  this  program  fairly  well  carried 
out,  and  at  another  time  in  a  limited  manner. 

The  beaver  is  practical,  peaceful,  and  industri- 
ous. He  builds  a  permanent  house  and  keeps  it 
clean  and  in  repair.  Beside  it  he  stores  food-supply 
29 


*  Qgfeawr 


for  the  long  winter.  He  takes  thought  for  the 
morrow.  These  and  other  commendable  charac- 
teristics give  him  a  place  of  honor  among  the 
hordes  of  homeless,  hand-to-mouth  folk  of  the  wild. 
During  the  winter  he  has  but  little  to  do  except 
bathe  and  eat  his  two  or  three  meals  a  day  from  the 
food  he  has  stored  in  the  autumn.  Towards  spring. 
when  his  wild  neighbors  are  lean,  hungry,  and 
cold,  he  is  fat  and  comfortable.  In  the  spring  he 
emerges  from  the  house,  but  then  his  only  work 
is  occasionally  to  cut  a  twig  for  food.  In  the 
summer  he  plays  tourist.  He  visits  other  colonies, 
and  wanders  up  and  down  streams,  going  miles 
from  home.  In  the  late  summer  or  early  autumn 
he  returns,  makes  repairs,  and  harvests  food  for 
winter. 

The  beaver  is  a  valuable  conservationist,  but 
there  are  localities  in  which  he  cannot  be  toler- 
ated. Although  dead  wood  is  rarely  cut  by  the 
beaver,  many  a  homesteader  has  been  disturbed 
by  his  cutting  off  and  carrying  away  green  fence 
posts.  Recently  beaver  have  returned  to  a  few 
localities  and  got  themselves  into  bad  repute  by 
felling  fruit  trees.  Occasionally,  too,  in  the  West, 
30 


friend 


they  have  lost  caste  by  persistently  damming  an 
irrigation-ditch  and  diverting  the  water,  despite 
the  fact  that  a  court  has  given  both  the  title  and 
the  right  to  this  water  to  some  one  else  a  mile 
or  so  down  the  ditch. 

In  all  logging  operations,  beaver  never  fail  — 
where  there  is  opportunity  —  to  cut  trees  up- 
stream and  float  them  down  with  the  current. 
Tree-cutting  is  an  interesting  phase  of  beaver 
life.  A  beaver  will  go  waddling  dully  from  the 
water  to  a  tree  he  is  about  to  cut  down.  All  will 
look  about  for  enemies;  one  may  be  wise  enough 
—  but  the  majority  will  not  do  so  —  to  look  up- 
ward to  see  if  the  tree  about  to  be  felled  is  en- 
tangled at  the  top.  All  appear  to  choose  a  com- 
fortable place  on  which  to  squat  or  sit  while 
cutting. 

Commonly  when  the  tree  begins  to  creak  and 
settle,  the  beaver  who  has  done  the  cutting  thuds 
the  ground  a  few  times  with  his  tail,  and  then 
scampers  away,  usually  going  into  the  water. 
Sometimes  the  near-by  workers  give  the  thudding 
signal  in  advance  of  the  one  who  is  doing  the 
cutting.  Now  and  then  no  warning  signal  is  given, 


and  the  logging  beaver  occasionally  fells  his  tree 
upon  other  workers  with  a  fatal  result.  As  with 
axe-men,  the  beaver  doing  the  cutting  is  on  rare 
occasions  caught  and  killed  by  the  tree  which 
he  fells. 

Rarely  does  the  beaver  give  any  thought  to 
the  direction  in  which  the  tree  will  fall.  In  a  few 
instances,  however,  I  have  seen  what  appeared 
to  be  an  effort  on  the  part  of  the  beaver  to  fell 
a1  tree  in  a  given  direction.  From  an  uncomfort- 
able place  he  cut  the  lowest  notch  on  the  side  on 
which  he  probably  wanted  the  tree  to  fall.  On 
one  of  these  occasions,  the  aspen  tree  selected 
stood  in  an  almost  complete  circle  of  pines.  The 
beaver  took  pains  to  cut  the  first  and  lowest  notch 
in  this  tree  directly  opposite  the  opening  in  the 
pines.  I  have  seen  a  number  of  instances  of  this 
kind.  And  he  will  sometimes  leave  the  windward 
side  of  a  grove  on  a  windy  day,  and  cut  on  the 
leeward,  so  that  the  felled  trees  are  not  entangled 
in  falling. 

Rarely  does  more  than  one  beaver  work  at  the 
same  time  at  a  tree.  In  some  instances,  however, 
if  the  tree  be  large,  two  or  even  more  beaver  will 
32 


Q 
M 

i! 

SI    3 
a    a 

S    I 


Out  ^jfrienb  t$t 

work  at  once.  But  after  the  tree  has  been  felled, 
ofttimes  three  or  four  beaver  will  unite  to  roll  a 
large  section  to  the  water.  In  doing  this,  some 
may  stand  with  paws  against  it  and  push,  and 
others  may  put  their  sides  or  hips  against  it.  On 
land,  as  in  the  water,  small  limb-covered  trees  are 
dragged  butt  foremost  so  as  to  meet  the  least 
resistance.  Sometimes  the  beaver  drags  walking 
backwards;  at  other  times  he  is  alongside  the 
tree  carrying  and  dragging  it  forward. 

Early  explorers  say  that  beaver  do  most  of  their 
work  at  night.  In  this  they  are  practically  unani- 
mous. However,  in  Long's  Journal,  written  in 
1820,  beaver  were  reported  at  work  in  broad  day- 
light. A  few  other  early  writers  have  also  men- 
tioned this  daylight  work.  They  probably  work 
in  darkness  because  that  is  the  safest  time  for 
them  to  be  out.  During  dozens  of  my  visits  to 
secluded  localities,  —  localities  which  had  not 
been  visited  by  man,  and  certainly  not  by  trappers, 
—  I  found  beaver  freely  at  work  in  broad  day- 
light. I  am  inclined  to  think  that  day  work  was 
common  during  primeval  times ;  and  that,  although 
the  beaver  now  do  and  long  have  done  most  of 
33 


3 


n  (eafcer  TUorfb 


their  work  at  night,  in  localities  where  they  are 
not  in  danger  from  man,  they  work  freely  during 
daytime. 

Both  the  Indians  and  the  trappers  have  a  story 
that  old  beaver  who  will  not  work  are  driven  from 
the  colony  and  become  morose  outcasts,  slowly 
living  away  the  days  by  themselves  in  a  burrow. 
I  have  no  evidence  to  verify  this  statement,  and 
am  inclined  to  think  that  solitary  beaver  occasion- 
ally found  in  abandoned  colony-sites  and  else- 
where are  simply  unfortunates,  perhaps  weighed 
down  with  age,  unable  to  travel  far,  with  teeth 
worn,  the  mate  dead,  without  ambition  to  try,  or 
without  strength  to  emigrate.  It  is  more  likely 
that  these  aged  ones  voluntarily  and  sadly  with- 
draw from  their  cheerful  and  industrious  fellows, 
to  spend  their  closing  days  alone.  Although,  too, 
there  were  among  Indians  and  trappers  stories 
of  beaver  slaves,  I  am  without  material  for  a  story 
of  this  kind. 

The  beaver  is  peaceful.  Although  the  males 

occasionally  fight  among  themselves,  the  beaver 

avoids  fighting,  and  plans  his  life  so  as  to  es- 

cape without  it.    Now  and   then  in    the  water 

34 


one  closes  with  an  otter  in  a  desperate  struggle, 
and  when  cornered  on  land  one  will  sometimes 
turn  upon  a  preying  foe  with  such  ferocity  and 
skill  that  his  assailant  is  glad  to  retreat.  On  two 
occasions  I  have  known  a  beaver  to  kill  a  bobcat. 

Beaver  are  not  equally  alert.  In  many  cases 
this  difference  may  be  due  to  a  difference  in  age 
or  experience.  Beaver  have  been  caught  with 
scars  which  show  that  they  have  been  trapped 
before,  a  few  even  having  lost  two  feet  in  escap- 
ing from  traps.  On  the  other  hand,  skillful  trap- 
pers have  found  themselves  after  repeated  trials, 
unable  to  catch  a  single  beaver  from  a  populous 
colony.  Sometimes  in  colonies  of  this  kind,  the 
beaver  even  audaciously  turned  the  traps  upside 
down  or  contemptuously  covered  them  with  mud. 

Nor  is  the  work  of  all  beaver  alike.  The  ditches 
which  one  beaver  digs,  the  house  one  builds,  or 
the  dam  one  makes,  may  be  executed  with  much 
greater  speed  and  with  more  skill  than  those  of 
a  neighboring  beaver.  Many  houses  are  crude 
and  unshapely  masses,  many  dams  haphazard  in 
appearance,  while  a  few  canals  are  crooked  and 
uneven.  But  the  majority  do  good  work,  and  are 
35 


quick  to  take  advantage  of  opportunity,  quick  to 
adjust  themselves  to  new  conditions,  or  to  use  the 
best  means  that  is  available.  Beaver  probably 
have  made  numbers  of  changes  in  their  manners, 
habits,  and  customs,  and  those  changes  undoubt- 
edly have  enabled  them  to  survive  relentless  pur- 
suit, and  to  leave  descendants  upon  the  earth. 

The  industry  of  the  beaver  is  proverbial,  and  it 
is  to  the  credit  of  any  person  to  have  the  dis- 
tinction of  working  "  like  a  beaver."  Most  people 
have  the  idea  that  the  beaver  is  always  at  work; 
not  that  he  necessarily  accomplishes  much  at  this 
work,  but  that  he  is  always  doing  something.  The 
fact  remains  that  under  normal  conditions  he 
works  less  than  half  the  time,  and  it  is  not  un- 
common for  him  to  spend  a  large  share  of  each 
year  in  what  might  be  called  play.  He  is  physic- 
ally capable  of  intense  and  prolonged  application, 
and,  being  an  intelligent  worker,  even  though  he 
works  less  than  half  the  time  he  accomplishes 
large  results. 


anb 


/VV  LL  Indian  tribes  in  North  America  appear 
\>V  to  have  had  one  or  more  legends  concern- 
ing the  beaver.  Most  of  these  legends  credit  him 
with  being  a  worthy  and  industrious  fellow,  and 
the  Cherokees  are  said  to  trace  their  origin  to  a 
sacred  and  practical  beaver.  Many  of  the  tribes 
had  a  legend  which  told  that  long,  long  ago  the 
Great  Waters  surged  around  a  shoreless  world. 
These  waters  were  peopled  with  beaver,  beaver 
of  a  gigantic  size.  These,  along  with  the  Great 
Spirit,  dived  and  brought  up  quantities  of  mud 
and  shaped  this  into  the  hills  and  dales,  the  moun- 
tains where  the  cataracts  plunged  and  sang,  and  all 
the  caves  and  canons.  The  scattered  boulders  and 
broken  crags  upon  the  earth  were  the  missiles 
thrown  by  evil  spirits,  who  in  the  beginning  of 
things  endeavored  to  hinder  and  prevent  the  con- 
structive work  of  creation. 
39 


The  beaver  has  been  found  in  fossil  both  in 
Europe  and  in  America.  Remnants  of  the  dugout 
and  the  teeth  of  beaver,  together  with  rude  stone 
implements  of  primitive  man,  have  been  found 
in  England.  Near  Albany,  New  York,  gnawed 
beaver  wood  and  the  remains  of  a  mastodon  were 
dug  up  from  about  forty  feet  below  the  surface 
in  sediment  and  river  ooze.  Fossil  beaver  were  of 
enormous  size. 

Coming  down  to  comparatively  modern  times, 
the  animal  as  we  now  know  him  appears  to  have 
been  distributed  over  almost  all  Asia,  Europe, 
and  North  America.  There  was  no  marked  differ- 
ence in  the  individuals  that  inhabited  these  three 
continents.  The  beaver  is  probably  extinct  in 
Europe,  but  in  July,  190x3,  I  found  a  piece  of 
wood  floating  in  the  Seine  that  had  been  recently 
gnawed  by  a  beaver.  At  this  time  I  was  assured 
that  not  even  a  tame  beaver  could  be  found  in 
Europe.  It  is  still  found  in  parts  of  Siberia  and 
Central  Asia.  That  form  which  inhabits  South 
America  is  very  unlike  those  in  the  Northern 
Hemisphere,  and  may  be  called  a  link  between 
the  muskrat  and  the  beaver. 
40 


anb 

Reference  is  made  to  the  beaver  in  ancient 
Egyptian  hieroglyphics,  and  Herodotus  makes 
repeated  mention  of  it.  Pliny  also  gives  a  brief 
account  of  this  animal.  In  Germany,  in  1103, 
the  right  of  hunting  beaver  was  conferred  along 
with  other  special  hunting  privileges;  and  a  bull 
of  Pope  Lucius  III,  in  1 182,  gave  to  a  monastery 
all  the  beaver  found  within  the  bounds  of  its 
property.  A  royal  edict  issued  at  Berlin  in  March, 
1725,  insisted  upon  the  protection  of  beaver. 

Before  the  white  man  came,  beaver —  Castor 
canadensis  —  were  widely  distributed  over  North 
America,  perhaps  more  widely  than  any  other 
animal.  The  beaver  population  was  large,  and 
probably  was  densest  to  the  southwest  of  Hudson 
Bay  and  around  the  headwaters  of  the  Missouri 
and  Columbia  rivers.  Their  scantiest  population 
areas  in  the  United  States  appear  to  have  been 
southern  Florida  and  the  lower  Mississippi  Val- 
ley. This  scantiness  is  attributed  by  early  ex- 
plorers to  the  aggressiveness  of  the  alligators. 
All  the  southern  half  of  Mexico  appears  to  have 
been  without  a  beaver  population ;  but  elsewhere 
over  North  America,  wherever  there  were  decid- 
41 


uous  trees  and  water,  and  in  a  few  treeless  places 
where  there  were  only  water  and  grass,  the  beaver 
were  found.  Along  the  thousands  of  smaller 
streams  throughout  North  America  there  was 
colony  after  colony,  dam  after  dam,  in  close  suc- 
cession, as  many  as  three  hundred  beaver  ponds 
to  the  mile.  Lewis  and  Clark  mention  the  fact 
that  near  the  Three  Forks,  Montana,  the  streams 
stretched  away  in  a  succession  of  beaver  ponds 
as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach.  The  statements 
made  by  the  early  explorers,  settlers,  and  trappers, 
together  with  my  own  observations, — which  com- 
menced in  1885,  and  which  have  extended  pretty 
well  over  the  country  from  northern  Mexico  into 
Alaska, — lead  to  the  conclusion  that  the  beaver 
population  of  North  America  at  the  beginning  of 
the  seventeenth  century  was  upwards  of  one  hun- 
dred million.  The  area  occupied  was  approxi- 
mately six  million  square  miles,  and  probably  two 
hundred  beaver  population  per  square  mile  would 
be  a  conservative  number  for  the  general  average. 
In  the  United  States  there  are  a  number  of 
counties  and  more  than  one  hundred  streams  and 
lakes  named  for  the  beaver ;  upwards  of  fifty  post- 
42 


an* 

offices  are  plain  Beaver,  Beaver  Pond,  Beaver 
Meadow,  or  some  other  combination  that  pro- 
claims the  former  prevalence  of  this  widely  dis- 
tributed builder.  The  beaver  is  the  national 
emblematic  animal  of  Canada,  and  there,  too, 
numerous  post-offices,  lakes,  and  streams  are 
named  for  the  beaver. 

Beaver  skins  lured  the  hunter  and  trapper  over 
all  American  wilds.  These  skins  were  one  of  the 
earliest  mediums  of  exchange  among  the  settlers 
of  North  America.  For  two  hundred  years  they 
were  one  of  the  most  important  exports,  and  for 
a  longer  time  they  were  also  the  chief  commodity 
of  trade  on  the  frontier.  A  beaver  skin  was  not 
only  the  standard  by  which  other  skins  were 
measured  in  value,  but  also  the  standard  of  value 
by  which  guns,  sugar,  cattle,  hatchets,  and  cloth- 
ing were  measured.  Though  freely  used  by  the 
early  settlers  for  clothing,  they  were  especially 
valuable  as  raw  material  for  the  manufacture  of 
hats,  and  for  this  purpose  were  largely  exported. 

From  this  animal  were  prepared  many  reme- 
dies which  in  former  times  were  believed  to  have 
high  medicinal  value.  Castoreum  was  the  most 
43 


popular  of  these,  and  from  it  was  compounded  the 
great  cure-all.  The  skin  of  the  beaver  was  thought 
to  be  an  excellent  preventive  of  colic  and  con- 
sumption; the  fat  of  the  beaver  efficient  in  apo- 
plexy and  epilepsy,  to  stop  spasms,  and  for  various 
afflictions  of  the  nerves.  Powdered  beaver  teeth 
were  often  given  in  soup  for  the  prevention  of 
many  diseases.  The  castoreum  of  the  beaver  was 
considered  a  most  efficient  remedy  for  earache, 
deafness,  headache,  and  gout,  for  the  restoring  of 
the  memory  and  the  cure  of  insanity.  Next  in 
importance  to  its  skin,  the  beaver  was  valued  for 
the  castoreum  it  yielded. 

The  old  hunters,  trappers,  and  first  settlers  fore- 
cast with  confidence  the  weather  from  the  actions 
of  the  beaver.  This  animal  was  credited  with 
being  weather-wise  to  a  high  degree.  From  his 
actions  the  nature  of  the  oncoming  winter  was 
predicted,  and  plans  to  meet  it  were  made  accord- 
ingly. Faith  in  the  beaver's  actions  and  activities 
as  a  basis  for  weather-forecasting'was  almost  abso- 
lute. If  the  beaver  began  work  early,  the  winter 
was  to  begin  early.  If  the  beaver  laid  up  a  large 
harvest,  covered  the  house  deeply  with  mud,  and 
44 


Qgfouwr  (J)a0*  anb 

raised  the  water-level  of  the  pond,  the  winter  was, 
of  course,  to  be  a  long  and  severe  one. 

Extensive  autumn  rambles  in  the  mountains 
with  especial  attention  to  beaver  customs  com- 
pels me  to  conclude  that  as  a  basis  for  weather 
prediction  beaverdom  is  not  reliable.  In  the  course 
of  one  autumn  month  in  the  mountains  of  Colo- 
rado more  than  one  hundred  colonies  were  ob- 
served. In  many  colonies  work  for  the  winter 
commenced  early.  In  others,  only  a  few  miles  dis- 
tant, preparations  for  the  winter  did  not  begin 
until  late.  In  some,  extensive  preparations  were 
made  for  the  winter.  In  a  few  the  harvest  laid 
up  was  exceedingly  small.  Thus  in  one  month  of 
the  same  year  I  saw  some  beaver  colonies  pre- 
paring for  a  long  winter  and  others  for  a  short 
one,  many  preparing  for  a  hard  winter  and  others 
almost  unprepared  for  winter.  From  these  varied 
and  conflicting  prognostications,  how  was  one 
accurately  to  forecast  the  coming  winter  ?  The 
old  prophets  in  one  colony  frequently  disagreed 
with  aged  prophets  who  were  similarly  situ- 
ated, but  in  a  neighboring  colony.  At  one  place 
thirty  or  more  beaver  gathered  an  enormous 
45 


3n 


quantity  of  food,  sufficient,  in  fact,  to  have  sup- 
plied twice  that  number  for  the  longest  and  most 
severe  winter.  The  winter  which  followed  was  as 
mild  a  one  as  had  passed  over  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains in  fifty  years.  Not  one  tenth  of  the  big 
food-pile  was  eaten. 

I  have  not  detected  anything  that  indicates  that 
the  beaver  ever  plan  for  an  especially  hard  win- 
ter. Goodly  preparations  are  annually  made  for 
winter.  Apparently  the  extent  of  the  preparation 
in  any  colony  is  dependent  almost  entirely  upon 
the  number  of  beaver  that  are  to  winter  in  that 
colony.  Winter  preparations  consist  of  gathering 
the  food-harvest,  repairing  and  sometimes  raising 
the  dam,  and  commonly  covering  the  house  with 
a  layer  of  mud.  Beaver  display  forethought,  in- 
telligence, and  even  wisdom,  but  being  weather- 
wise  is  not  one  of  their  successful  specialties. 
Local  beaver  now  and  then  show  unusual  activity, 
and  unusually  large  supplies  are  gathered  and 
stored  for  the  winter.  This  kind  of  work  appears 
to.be  local,  not  general.  The  cases  in  which  un- 
usually large  preparations  were  made  for  the 
winter  could  have  been  traced  to  an  increased 
46 


anb 

population  of  the  colony  that  showed  these  ac- 
tivities. On  the  other  hand,  colonies  with  less 
preparations  one  year  than  on  the  preceding  one 
probably  had  suffered  a  decrease  of  population. 
Increase  of  population  in  a  beaver  colony  may  be 
accounted  for  through  the  growing  up  of  young- 
sters, or  by  the  arrival  of  immigrants,  or  both; 
where  the  temporary  inactivity  of  trappers  in  one 
locality  might  allow  the  beaver  colony  in  that 
region  to  increase  in  numbers ;  or  where  the 
beaver  population  of  that  colony  might  be  in- 
creased by  the  arrival  of  beaver  driven  from  their 
homes  by  aggressive  hunters  and  trappers  in 
adjoining  localities.  At  any  rate,  in  the  beaver 
world,  some  colonies  each  year  commence  work 
earlier  than  do  others,  and  some  colonies  make 
extensive  preparations  for  the  winter,  while  others 
make  but  little  preparation.  This  preparation  ap- 
pears to  be  determined  chiefly  by  the  number  of 
colonists  and  the  needs  of  the  colony. 

The  beaver  hastened,  if  it  did  not  bring,  the 

settlement  of  the  country.  Hunters  and  trappers 

blazed  the  trails,  described  the  natural  resources, 

and  lured  the  permanent  settlers  to  possess  the 

47 


land  and  build  homes  among  the  ruins  left  by 
the  beaver.  Early  in  the  fur  industry  companies 
were  formed,  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  be- 
coming the  most  influential  and  best  known.  Its 
charter  was  granted  by  Charles  II  of  England  on 
the  2d  day  of  May,  1669.  This  company  finally 
developed  into  one  of  the  greatest  commercial 
enterprises  that  America  has  ever  known.  The 
skin  of  the  beaver  furnished  more  than  half  its 
revenue.  There  are  many  features  in  the  history 
of  this  company  that  have  never  been  surpassed 
in  any  land.  For  more  than  two  hundred  years  it 
held  absolute  sway  over  a  country  larger  than 
Europe,  and  for  the  first  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years  of  its  existence  it  was  the  government  of  the 
territory  where  it  ruled,  and  thus  determined  the 
social  and  other  standards  of  life  within  that  ter- 
ritory. One  of  the  early  officials  of  this  company 
declared  that  they  were  on  the  ground  ahead 
of  the  missionaries,  and  said  that  the  initials 
"  H.  B.  C."  on  the  banner  of  the  company  might 
well  be  interpreted  as  "  Here  before  Christ." 

Kingsford's  History  of  Canada  says  that  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  Canada  exported  a  moderate 
48 


(pas*  anb 

quantity  of  timber,  wheat,  the  herb  called  gin- 
seng, and  a  few  other  commodities,  but  from  first 
to  last  she  lived  chiefly  on  beaver  skins.  Horace 
T.  Martin,  formerly  Secretary  of  Agriculture  for 
Canada,  calls  the  beaver's  part  in  Canadian  de- 
velopment "a  subject  which  has  from  the  in- 
ception of  civilization  been  associated  with  the 
industrial  and  commercial  development,  and  in- 
directly with  the  social  life,  the  romance,  and  to 
a  considerable  extent  with  the  wars  of  Canada." 

The  American  Fur  Company  and  the  North- 
western Fur  Company  were  two  large  fur-gather- 
ing enterprises  whose  trappers  ranged  afar  and 
who  left  their  mark  in  the  history  and  the  devel- 
opment of  the  Northwest.  The  colossal  Astor 
fortune  really  had  its  beginning  in  the  wealth 
which  John  Jacob  Astor  amassed  chiefly  through 
the  gathering  and  the  sale  of  beaver  skins. 
Beaver  skins  are  now  economically  unimportant 
in  commerce,  but  their  value  has  already  led  to 
the  establishment  of  a  few  beaver  farms. 

To-day  beaver  are  apparently  extinct  over  the 
greater  portion  of  the  area  which  they  formerly 
occupied,  and  are  scarce  over  the  remaining  in- 
49 


habited  area.  Scattered  colonies  are  found  in  the 
Rocky  Mountains  and  in  the  mountains  of  the 
Pacific  Coast,  and  there  are  localities  in  Canada 
where  they  are  still  fairly  abundant.  In  many 
places  in  the  Grand  Canon  of  the  Colorado  they 
are  common.  A  few  are  found  in  Michigan  and 
Maine.  Some  years  ago  a  few  brooks  in  the 
Adirondacks  were  successfully  colonized  with 
these  useful  animals.  They  have  reappeared  in 
Pennsylvania,  and  there  probably  are  straggling 
beaver  all  over  the  United  States  which,  if  pro- 
tected, would  increase. 

There  is  a  growing  sentiment  in  favor  of  allow- 
ing the  beaver  to  multiply.  In  1877  Missouri 
passed  a  law  protecting  these  animals;  so  did 
Maine  in  1885  and  Colorado  in  1899.  Other 
States  to  the  total  number  of  twenty-four  have 
also  legislated  for  their  protection.  The  Cana- 
dian government  has  also  passed  protective  laws. 
A  noticeable  increase  has  already  occurred  in  a 
few  localities.  Beaver  multiply  rapidly  under  pro- 
tection, as  is  shown  in  the  National  Parks  of 
both  Canada  and  the  United  States. 


($0 


R  three  hundred  years  the  beaver  has  been 
a  popular  subject  for  discussion.  Fabulous 
accounts  have  been  given  concerning  his  works, 
and  that  which  he  has  done  has  been  exag- 
gerated beyond  recognition.  Many  of  the  de- 
scriptions of  him  are  grotesque,  and  many  ac- 
counts of  his  works  are  uncanny.  His  tail  has 
been  made  to  do  the  work  of  a  pile-driver,  and 
some  of  the  old  accounts  credit  him  with  driv- 
ing stakes  into  the  ground  that  were  as  large  as 
a  man's  thigh  and  five  or  six  feet  long.  Stories 
have  been  told  that  his  tail  was  used  as  a  trowel 
in  plastering  the  house  and  the  dam.  A  few 
writers  have  stated  that  he  lived  in  a  three-story 
lodge.  More  than  a  century  ago  Audubon  called 
attention  to  the  enormous  mass  of  fabrications 
that  had  been  written  concerning  this  animal, 
and  in  1771  Samuel  Hearne  of  the  Hudson's 
Bay  Company  denounced  a  beaver  nature-faker 
in  the  following  terms:  "The  compiler  of  the 
53 


3n 

Wonders  of  Nature  and  Art  seems  to  have  not 
only  collected  all  the  fictions  into  which  other 
writers  on  the  subject  have  run,  but  has  so  greatly 
improved  on  them  that  little  remains  to  be  added 
to  his  account  of  the  beaver  beside  a  vocabulary 
of  their  language,  a  code  of  their  laws,  and  a 
sketch  of  their  religion,  to  make  it  the  most 
complete  natural  history  of  that  animal." 

One  might  read  almost  the  entire  mass  of 
printed  matter  concerning  the  beaver  without 
obtaining  correct  information  about  his  manners 
and  customs  or  an  accurate  description  of  his 
works  and  without  getting  at  the  real  character 
of  this  animal.  The  actual  life  and  character  of 
the  beaver,  however,  the  work  which  he  does,  the 
unusual  things  which  he  has  accomplished,  are 
really  more  interesting  and  place  the  beaver  on 
a  higher  plane  than  do  all  the  fictitious  tales  and 
exaggerated  accounts  written  concerning  him. 

Mr.  Lewis  H.  Morgan  in  his  "  American  Beaver 
and  his  Works  "  says :  "  No  other  animal  has  at- 
tracted a  larger  share  of  attention  or  acquired  by 
his  intelligence  a  more  respectable  position  in 
the  public  estimation.  Around  him  are  the  dam, 
54 


the  lodge,  the  burrow,  the  tree-cutting,  and  the 
artificial  canal,  each  testifying  to  his  handiwork, 
and  affording  us  an  opportunity  to  see  the  appli- 
cation as  well  as  the  results  of  his  mental  and 
physical  powers.  There  is  no  animal  below  man 
in  the  entire  range  of  Mammalia  which  offers  to 
our  investigation  such  a  series  of  works,  or  pre- 
sents such  remarkable  material  for  study  and 
illustration  of  animal  psychology." 

Mr.  Morgan  was  for  years  a  capable  and  pains- 
taking student  of  the  beaver.  That  which  he  has 
written  is  so  important  a  contribution  concerning 
the  beaver  that  no  one  interested  in  this  animal 
can  afford  to  be  unacquainted  with  it.  In  the  pre- 
face of  his  book  he  says :  "  I  took  up  the  subject 
as  I  did  fishing,  for  summer  recreation.  In  the 
year  1861,  I  had  occasion  to  visit  the  Red  River 
Settlement  in  the  Hudson's  Bay  Territory,  and 
in  1862,  to  ascend  the  Missouri  River  to  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  which  enabled  me  to  com- 
pare the  works  of  the  beaver  in  these  localities 
with  those  on  Lake  Superior.  At  the  outset  I 
had  no  expectation  of  following  up  the  subject 
year  after  year,  but  was  led  on,  by  the  interest 
55 


which  it  awakened,  until  the  materials  collected 
seemed  to  be  worth  arranging  for  publication." 

The  greatest  admirers  of  the  beaver  are  those 
who  know  him  best.  He  bears  acquaintance. 
This  cannot  be  had  by  merely  looking  at  the 
animal,  nor  by  sympathetically  studying  his  mon- 
umental works.  These  works  will  of  course  im- 
press one,  but  they  give  one  at  best  only  a  trav- 
eler's impression.  Long  and  repeated  visits  to 
the  colony  in  its  busy  season  appear  to  be  the 
best  way  to  get  at  the  character  of  the  beaver. 
The  cubical  contents  of  a  dam  may  not  even 
suggest  the  obstacles  overcome  in  its  construc- 
tion, the  labor  of  getting  the  material,  the  dangers 
avoided,  the  numerous  unexpected  difficulties 
overcome.  Five  cords  of  green  poles  and  limbs 
in  a  neat  pile  in  the  pond  by  the  beaver  house 
may  tell  that  the  harvest  has  been  gathered,  but 
it  does  not  tell  that  a  part  of  this  harvest  may 
have  been  gathered  a  mile  away  and  skillfully 
transported  to  the  house  with  difficulty  and  amid 
dangers.  A  part  of  the  food-pile  may  have  been 
dragged  laboriously  uphill  and  along  trails  which 
required  months  of  labor  to  open  ;  or  numerous 
56 


pieces  in  this  pile  may  have  been  floated  through 
a  canal  of  such  magnitude  that  a  generation  was 
required  to  construct  it.  Altogether,  harvest- 
gathering  is  interesting  and  heroic  work  on  the 
part  of  the  beaver.  In  doing  it  he  takes  large 
risks,  for  the  harvest  is  usually  gathered  far 
from  the  house  and  on  the  dangerous  beaver 
frontier. 

For  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  I  have 
been  a  friendly  visitor  to  his  colonies,  in  which 
I  have  lingered  long  and  lovingly.  That  he  makes 
mistakes  is  certain,  but  that  he  is  an  intelligent, 
reasoning  animal  I  have  long  firmly  believed. 
As  I  said  in  "Wild  Life  on  the  Rockies,"  — "I 
have  so  often  seen  him  change  his  plans  so  wisely 
and  meet  emergencies  so  promptly  and  well  that 
I  can  think  of  him  only  as  a  reasoner." 

As  evidence  that  he  sometimes  reasons,  it  may 
be  cited  that  he  occasionally  endeavors  to  fell 
trees  in  a  given  direction ;  that  he  often  avoids 
cutting  those  entangled  at  the  top ;  that  some- 
times he  will,  on  a  windy  day,  fell  trees  on  the 
leeward  side  of  a  grove ;  that  he  commonly  avoids 
felling  trees  in  the  heart  of  a  grove,  but  cuts  on 
57 


3n 

the  outskirts  of  it.  He  occasionally  dams  a  stream, 
digs  a  canal,  leads  water  to  a  dry  place,  and  there 
forms  and  fills  a  reservoir  and  establishes  a  home. 
Often  his  house  is  built  by  a  spring  and  thus  the 
danger  from  thick  ice  avoided.  These  are  some 
of  the  reasons  for  my  believing  him  to  be  intel- 
ligent. 

Morgan  speaks  of  the  beaver  as  "  endowed  with 
a  mental  principle  which  performs  for  him  the 
same  office  that  the  human  mind  does  for  man," 
and  says, "  The  works  of  the  beaver  afford  many 
interesting  illustrations  of  his  intelligence  and  rea- 
soning capacity,"  also,  "  In  the  capacity  thereby 
displayed  of  adapting  their  works  to  the  ever-vary- 
ing circumstances  in  which  they  find  themselves 
placed  instead  of  following  blindly  an  invariable 
type,  some  evidence  of  possession  on  their  part 
Qifree  intelligence  is  undoubtedly  furnished." 

Mr.  George  J.  Romanes  has  the  following 
opinion  of  the  beaver:  "  Most  remarkable  among 
rodents  for  instinct  and  intelligence,  unques- 
tionably stands  the  beaver.  Indeed  there  is  no 
animal  —  not  even  excepting  the  ants  and  bees  — 
where  instinct  has  risen  to  a  higher  level  of  far- 
58 


reaching  adaptation  to  certain  constant  conditions 
of  environment,  or  where  faculties,  undoubtedly 
instinctive,  are  more  puzzlingly  wrought  up  with 
faculties  no  less  undoubtedly  intelligent.  ...  It 
is  truly  an  astonishing  fact  that  animals  should 
engage  in  such  vast  architectural  labors  with 
what  appears  to  be  the  deliberate  purpose  of  se- 
curing, by  such  artificial  means,  the  special  bene- 
fits that  arise  from  their  high  engineering  skill. 
So  astonishing,  indeed,  does  this  fact  appear, 
that  as  sober  minded  interpreters  of  fact  we 
would  fain  look  for  some  explanation  which  would 
not  necessitate  the  inference  that  these  actions 
are  due  to  any  intelligent  appreciation,  either  of 
the  benefits  that  arise  from  labor,  or  of  the  hydro- 
static principles  to  which  this  labor  so  clearly 
refers." 

Mr.  Alexander  Majors,  originator  of  the  Pony 
Express,  who  lived  a  long,  alert  life  in  the  wilds, 
pays  the  beaver  the  following  peculiar  tribute 
in  his  "Seventy  Years  on  the  Frontier":  "The 
beaver,  considered  as  an  engineer,  is  a  remark- 
able animal.  He  can  run  a  tunnel  as  direct  as  the 
best  engineer  could  do  with  his  instruments  to 
59 


guide  him.  I  have  seen  where  they  have  built  a 
dam  across  a  stream,  and  not  having  sufficient 
head  water  to  keep  their  pond  full,  they  would 
cross  to  a  stream  higher  up  the  side  of  the  moun- 
tain, and  cut  a  ditch  from  the  upper  stream 
and  connect  it  with  the  pond  of  the  lower,  and  do 
it  as  neatly  as  an  engineer  with  his  tools  could 
possibly  do  it.  I  have  often  said  that  the  beaver 
in  the  Rocky  Mountains  had  more  engineering 
skill  than  the  entire  corps  of  engineers  who  were 
connected  with  General  Grant's  army  when  he 
besieged  Vicksburg  on  the  banks  of  the  Missis- 
sippi. The  beaver  would  never  have  attempted 
to  turn  the  Mississippi  into  a  canal  to  change  its 
channel  without  first  making  a  dam  across  the 
channel  below  the  point  of  starting  the  canal. 
The  beaver,  as  I  have  said,  rivals  and  sometimes 
even  excels  the  ingenuity  of  man." 

Longfellow  translates  the  spirit  of  the  beaver 
world  into  words,  and  enables  one  in  imagination 
to  restore  the  primeval  scenes  wherein  the  beaver 
lived :  — 

"  Should  you  ask  me,  whence  these  stories  ? 
Whence  these  legends  and  traditions, 
60 


** 

With  the  odors  of  the  forest, 

With  the  dew  and  damp  of  meadows, 

Should  you  ask  where  Nawadaha 
Found  these  songs  so  wild  and  wayward, 
Found  these  legends  and  traditions, 
I  should  answer,  I  should  tell  you, 
'  In  the  bird's-nests  of  the  forest, 
In  the  lodges  of  the  beaver.'  " 

And  the  cunning  Pau-Puk-Keewis,  fleeing  from 
the  wrath  of  Hiawatha,  ran,  — 

"  Till  he  came  unto  a  streamlet 
In  the  middle  of  the  forest, 
To  a  streamlet  still  and  tranquil, 
That  had  overflowed  its  margin, 
To  a  dam  made  by  the  beavers, 
To  a  pond  of  quiet  water, 
Where  knee-deep  the  trees  were  standing, 
Where  the  water-lilies  floated, 
Where  the  rushes  waved  and  whispered. 

On  the  dam  stood  Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
On  the  dam  of  trunks  and  branches, 
Through  whose  chinks  the  water  spouted, 
O'er  whose  summit  flowed  the  streamlet. 
From  the  bottom  rose  the  beaver, 
Looked  with  two  great  eyes  of  wonder, 
Eyes  that  seemed  to  ask  a  question, 
At  the  stranger  Pau-Puk-Keewis." 


©am 


of  beaver  ponds  graced  Amer- 
ica's  wild  gardens  at  the  time  the  first 
settlers  came.  These  ragged  and  poetic  ponds 
varied  in  length  from  a  few  feet  to  one  mile,  and 
in  area  they  were  from  one  hundred  acres  down 
to  a  miniature  pond  that  half  a  dozen  merry  child- 
ren might  encircle.  These  ponds  were  formed  by 
dams  built  by  beaver,  and  the  dams  varied  greatly 
in  size  and  were  made  of  poles  variously  combined 
with  sticks,  stones,  trash,  rushes,  and  earth. 

In  the  Bad  Lands  of  Dakota  I  saw  two  dams 
that  were  made  of  chunks  of  coal.  This  material 
had  caved  from  a  near-by  bluff.  I  have  noticed  a 
few  that  were  constructed  of  cobble-stones.  The 
water-front  of  these  dams  was  filled  and  covered 
with  clay,  and  they  were  the  work  of  "grass 
beavers,"  —  beaver  that  subsist  chiefly  on  grass, 
and  that  live  in  localities  almost  destitute  of 
trees. 

It  is  doubtful  if  a  dam  is  ever  made  by  felling 
65 


n  ($**»** 

logs  or  large  trees  across  the  stream.  I  have,  how- 
ever, seen  a  few  real  log  dams,  but  in  these  the 
logs  were  placed  parallel  to  the  flow  of  water. 
One  of  these  was  in  the  Sawtooth  Mountains  of 
Idaho.  Here  a  snow-slide  swept  several  hundred 
trees  down  the  mountain.  This  wreckage  was 
piled  on  the  bank  of  a  stream.  Beaver  in  a  colony 
a  short  distance  away  accepted  this  gift  of  the 
gods,  and  of  these  unwieldy  logs  built  a  dam 
about  two  hundred  feet  downstream  from  where 
the  avalanche  had  piled  the  logs.  This  dam  was 
a  massive  affair,  about  forty  feet  long  and  eight 
feet  high.  It  really  appeared  more  like  a  log  jam 
than  a  dam,  but  it  served  the  purpose  intended 
and  raised  the  level  of  the  river  so  that  the  water 
overflowed  to  one  side  and  spread  in  a  broad 
sheet  against  a  cliff  and  through  a  grove  of  as- 
pens, which  the  beaver  proceeded  to  harvest. 

The  majority  of  dams  are  made  of  slender 
green  poles  which  are  placed  lengthwise  with  the 
flow  for  the  bottom,  and  set  braced  with  the  end 
upstream  a  foot  or  so  higher  than  the  down- 
stream end.  With  these  there  are  occasionally 
used  small  limby  trees.  The  large  end  of  the  tree 
66 


©am 

is  placed  upstream,  and  the  small  bushy  end 
downstream.  If  in  a  current  these  sometimes  are 
weighed  down  with  mud  or  stones.  Short,  stout 
sticks  and  long,  slender  poles  are  deftly  mingled 
in  the  dam  as  it  rises.  The  poles  overlie,  and 
many  completed  dams  appear  as  though  made 
of  gigantic  inclined  half-closed  shears  and  com- 
passes of  poles.  Thus  a  dam  is  doubly  braced.  The 
weight  against  it  is  resisted  both  by  the  end-on 
poles  that  are  parallel  to  the  flow  and  by  those 
set  at  an  angle  to  it. 

The  shape  and  the  material  of  a  dam  are  de- 
pendent on  a  number  of  things :  the  nature  of 
the  place  where  built,  the  kind  of  materials  avail- 
able for  its  building,  the  purpose  it  is  intended 
to  serve,  and  the  relation  it  may  have  to  dams 
already  constructed.  Sometimes  a  small  dam  will 
be  made  —  that  may  ultimately  become  a  big  one 
—  by  simply  digging  a  ditch  across  the  stream 
or  basin  and  piling  the  excavated  material  into  a 
dam. 

Beaver,  like  men,  are  unequal  in  their  skill, 
both  in  planning  and  in  doing  work,  and  the  work 
of  most  beaver  falls  short  of  perfection.  Errors  are 
67 


not  uncommon.  More  than  one  colony  has  com- 
menced a  dam  apparently  without  knowing  that 
there  was  not  sufficient  available  material  to  com- 
plete it.  Others  have  built  in  the  wrong  places, 
and  have  thus  failed  to  flood  the  area  which  they 
desired  to  reach  or  cover  with  water.  Occasion- 
ally the  difficulties  of  construction  have  been  too 
great  for  the  beaver  who  attempted  it,  and  the 
dam  has  been  abandoned  in  an  incomplete  state. 
Now  and  then  a  weak  dam  breaks,  or  a  strong 
one  is  swept  out  by  a  flood. 

But  why  do  beaver  need  or  want  the  pond  which 
the  dam  forms  ?  They  need  it  for  the  purpose  of 
maintaining  water  of  sufficient  depth  and  area  to 
enable  them  to  move  about  in  safety,  and  to  trans- 
port their  food-supplies  with  the  greatest  ease. 
Above  all,  the  pond  is  a  place  of  refuge  into  which 
the  beaver  can  constantly  plunge  and  have  secur- 
ity from  his  numerous  and  ever  watchful  enemies. 
The  house-entrance  must  be  kept  water-covered. 
In  the  water  the  beaver  is  in  his  element  On  the 
land  he  is  a  child  lost  in  the  wilds.  He  has  ex- 
tremely short  legs  and  a  heavy  body.  His  make- 
up fits  him  for  movement  in  the  water.  He  is  a 
68 


©ont 

graceful  swimmer,  and  in  the  water  can  move 
easily  and  evade  enemies ;  while  on  land  he  is  an 
awkward  lubber,  moves  slowly,  and  is  easily  over- 
taken. Water  of  sufficient  depth  and  area,  then, 
is  essential  to  the  life  and  happiness  of  the  beaver. 
To  have  this  at  all  times  it  is  necessary,  in  local- 
ities where  the  supply  is  at  times  insufficient,  to 
maintain  it  by  means  of  dams  and  ponds. 

Deep  ponds  are  needed  around  the  house; 
shallow  ponds  with  shores  in  near-by  groves 
facilitate  far-away  logging.  Dams  are  placed 
across  streams  whose  waters  are  to  be  led  away 
through  new  channels  and  made  to  serve  else- 
where in  canals  or  ponds.  Dams  are  made  across 
inclined  canals  to  catch  and  hold  water  in  them. 
Streams  are  beaver's  avenues  of  travel.  Along 
shallow  streams  in  a  beaver  country  it  is  not  un- 
common to  see  an  occasional  short  dam  which 
forms  a  deep  hole,  which  apparently  is  maintained 
as  a  harbor  or  place  of  safety  into  which  travel- 
ing beaver  may  dive  and  be  made  safe  from 
pursuit. 

Most  beaver  dams  are  built  on  the  installment 
plan.  They  are  the  result  of  growth.  The  new 
69 


3 


n 


dam  is  short  and  comparatively  low.  It  is  enlarged 
as  conditions  may  require.  As  the  trees  in  the 
edge  of  the  pond  are  harvested,  the  dam  is  built 
higher  and  longer,  so  as  to  flood  a  larger  area  ; 
or  as  sediment  fills  the  pond,  the  dam  is  from 
time  to  time  raised  and  lengthened  in  order  to 
maintain  the  desired  depth  of  water.  Thus  it  may 
grow  through  the  years  until  the  possibilities  of 
the  locality  are  exhausted.  The  dam  may  then  be 
abandoned.  It  may  be  used  for  a  few  years  or  it 
may  be  used  for  a  century.  A  gigantic  beaver 
dam  may  thus  represent  the  work  of  several  gen- 
erations of  beaver.  It  often  occurs  that  one  or 
more  generations  may  use  a  dam  and  yearly  add 
something  to  its  size.  By  and  by  these  beaver 
may  die  or  emigrate.  The  old  dam  remains,  fall- 
ing to  ruin  in  places.  Years  go  by  and  other 
beaver  come  upon  the  scene.  The  old  dam  is 
then  used  for  the  foundation  for  a  new  one.  The 
appearance  of  some  old  dams  indicates  that  they 
have  been  repeatedly  used  and  abandoned. 

New  dams,  being  made  largely  of  coarse  mate- 
rials, appear  very  unlike  old  ones.  Decay,  settling, 
repairs,  and  other  changes  come  rapidly.   The 
70 


dam  is  built  of  poles  to-day ;  it  speedily  becomes 
earthy  and  is  planted  by  nature  to  grass,  willows, 
and  flowers.  On  old,  large  dams  it  is  not  uncom- 
mon to  see  old  forest-trees.  The  roots  of  these 
entangle  the  constructive  materials,  penetrate 
deeply,  and  help  to  anchor  securely  the  entire 
dam. 

In  only  a  few  cases  are  the  water-fronts  of 
dams  at  once  plastered  or  filled  in  with  mud. 
This  is  done  only  where  there  is  a  scarcity  of 
water.  It  is  the  aim  of  the  beaver  to  raise  the 
water  in  the  pond  to  a  certain  height  and  there 
maintain  it,  the  chief  purpose  of  the  dam  being 
to  regulate  the  height  or  the  depth  of  the  water. 
The  water,  in  streaming  through  new  dams,  de- 
posits therein  quantities  of  sticks,  trash,  and  sedi- 
ment, so  that  in  a  year  or  two  these  choke  the 
holes,  almost  stop  the  leakage  of  the  water,  and 
help  to  solidify  the  dam.  The  discharge  from 
dams  is  regulated  by  the  beaver.  In  some  in- 
stances water  leaks  through  a  dam  in  numerous 
places  from  bottom  to  top;  in  others  it  seeps 
through  only  close  to  the  top ;  and  in  still  others 
the  dam  is  so  solid  that  the  water  pours  over  the 


top  in  a  thin  sheet.  In  some  cases,  however,  in- 
stead of  the  water  pouring  over  the  entire  length 
of  the  dam  the  beaver  force  it  to  pour  over  in  a 
given  stretch  at  one  end  or  the  other,  or  some- 
times through  a  hole  or  tunnel.  The  concentra- 
tion of  the  overflow  at  some  one  point  in  the  dam 
is  commonly  done  either  for  the  purpose  of  using 
it  in  transportation  or  to  force  the  water  to  out- 
pour on  a  spot  where  it  will  least  erode  the 
foundation  of  the  dam.  Occasionally  beaver  com- 
pel the  water  to  flow  round  the  end  of  a  dam, 
which  they  raise  sufficiently  high  for  that  purpose. 
Sometimes  they  dig  a  waste-way  for  the  water. 

European  beaver  appear  to  have  barely  devel- 
oped to  the  dam-building  stage.  Rarely  did  they 
build  even  a  small,  unimportant  dam.  Nor  did 
all  the  American  beaver  build  dams.  At  the  time 
the  beaver  population  was  most  numerous  and 
widely  distributed,  probably  not  more  than  half 
of  them  used  the  dam.  However,  those  not  using 
the  dam  were  living  in  places  where  the  dam  and 
consequent  pond  were  not  needed.  Dam-building 
enormously  increased  the  habitable  beaver  area. 
There  were,  and  are,  thousands  of  brooks  which 
72 


©am 

each  year  cease  to  flow  for  a  period,  yet  on 
these  brooks  are  all  other  beaver  requirements 
except  a  permanent,  sufficient  water-supply.  By 
dam-building  water  is  stored  for  to-morrow,  or 
stream-courses  changed,  and  with  the  assistance 
of  canals  water  is  diverted  to  a  dry  ravine  where 
a  colony  is  established. 

The  dam  is  the  largest  and  in  many  respects 
the  most  influential  beaver  work.  Across  a  stream 
it  is  an  inviting  thoroughfare  for  the  folk  of  the 
wild.  As  soon  as  a  dam  is  completed,  it  becomes 
a  wilderness  highway.  It  is  used  day  and  night. 
Across  it  go  bears  and  lions,  rabbits  and  wolves, 
mice  and  porcupines;  chipmunks  use  it  for  a 
bridge,  birds  alight  upon  it,  trout  attempt  to  leap 
it,  and  in  the  evening  the  graceful  deer  cast  their 
reflections  with  the  willows  in  its  quiet  pond. 
Across  it  dash  pursuer  arid  pursued.  Upon  it 
take  place  battles  and  courtships.  Often  it  is 
torn  by  hoof  and  claw.  Death  struggles  stain  it 
with  blood.  Many  a  drama,  romantic  and  pic- 
turesque, fierce  and  wild,  is  staged  upon  the 
beaver  dam. 

The  beaver  dam  gives  new  character  to  the 
73 


3n 

landscape.  It  frequently  alters  the  course  of  a 
stream  and  changes  the  topography.  It  intro- 
duces water  into  the  scene.  It  nourishes  new 
plant-life.  It  brings  new  birds.  It  provides  a  har- 
bor and  a  home  for  fish  throughout  the  changing 
seasons.  It  seizes  sediment  and  soil  from  the 
rushing  waters,  and  it  sends  water  through  sub- 
terranean ways  to  form  and  feed  springs  which 
give  bloom  to  terraces  below.  It  is  a  distributor 
of  the  waters;  and  on  days  when  dark  clouds 
are  shaken  with  heavy  thunder,  the  beaver  dam 
silently  breasts,  breaks,  and  delays  the  down-rush- 
ing flood  waters,  saves  and  stores  them  ;  then, 
through  all  the  rainless  days  that  follow,  it  slowly 
releases  them. 

Most  old  colonies  have  many  dams  and  ponds. 
A  dam  is  sometimes  built  for  the  purpose  of 
forcing  water  back  and  to  one  side  into  a  grove 
that  is  to  be  harvested  for  food.  In  many  cases 
water  flows  round  the  end  of  a  dam,  and  in  mak- 
ing its  way  back  to  the  main  channel  is  inter- 
cepted by  another  dam,  then  another;  and  thus 
the  water  from  one  small  brook  maintains  a  clus- 
ter or  chain  of  pondlets. 
74 


The  majority  of  beaver  dams  are  as  crooked 
as  a  river's  course.  Now  and  then  one  is  straight. 
A  few  are  built  from  shore  to  a  boulder,  from  the 
boulder  to  a  willow-clump,  and  finally,  perhaps, 
from  willow-clump  to  some  outstretching  penin- 
sula on  the  further  shore.  It  is  not  uncommon 
for  a  short  dam  to  be  built  and  afterwards  length- 
ened with  additions  on  each  end  which  may 
curve  either  down  or  up  stream.  Sometimes  a 
dam  is  built  outward  from  opposite  shores  simul- 
taneously by  separate  but  cooperating  crews  of 
beaver.  In  swift  water  these  ends  are  forced  down- 
stream in  building,  so  that  when  they  are  finally 
joined  midstream  the  dam  curves  noticeably  down- 
stream. 

On  one  occasion  I  watched  beaver  commence 
and  complete  a  dam  in  moderately  swift  water 
that  when  finished  bowed  strongly  upstredm. 
This,  however,  was  not  the  intention  of  the  build- 
ers. The  material  for  this  dam  consisted  of  wil- 
low and  alder  poles  that  were  cut  some  distance 
upstream.  These  were  floated  down  as  used. 
This  dam  was  begun  against  a  huge  boulder  near 
midstream,  and  built  outward  simultaneously  to- 
75 


3« 

ward  both  shores.  Despite  the  repeated  efforts 
of  the  builders  to  extend  it  in  a  straight  line  to 
the  shore,  the  flow  of  the  water  pushed  these  out- 
building ends  downward,  and  when  they  finally 
reached  the  shore  this  fifty-odd  feet  of  dam  with 
the  boulder  for  a  keystone  had  an  arch  that  was 
about  fifteen  feet  in  advance  of  the  bases. 

Not  far  from  where  I  lived  in  the  mountains 
when  a  boy,  the  beaver  built  a  dam.  This  had  a 
slight  arch  upstream.  A  few  years  later  the  dam 
was  doubled  in  length  by  building  an  extension 
on  the  end  which  bowed  downstream.  It  thus 
stood  a  reverse  curve.  Later  the  dam  was  still 
further  lengthened  by  a  comparatively  straight 
stretch  on  one  end,  and  by  a  short,  down-bowing 
stretch  on  the  other.  Recent  additions  to  this 
dam  consist  of  wings  at  the  end  which  sweep  up- 
stream. The  dam  as  it  now  stands  reaches  about 
three  fourths  of  the  way  around  the  pond  which 
it  forms. 

It  is  not  uncommon  for  a  dam  to  be  planned 

and  built  with  an  arch  against  the  current  or 

against  the  water  which  it  afterwards  impounds. 

The  most  interesting  dam  of  this  kind  that  I  ever 

76 


©am 

saw  was  one  across  the  narrow  neck  of  a  rudely 
bell-shaped  basin  that  was  about  two  hundred 
feet  in  length.  The  material  for  this  dam  came 
from  a  grove  of  aspens  that  extended  into  one 
side  of  the  basin.  The  floor  of  this  basin  was 
partly  covered  with  a  few  inches  of  water.  In  start- 
ing the  dam  the  beaver  evidently  knew  where 
they  wanted  to  build  it.  This  was  not  by  the 
aspen  grove  where  the  materials  were  convenient, 
where  the  dam  would  need  to  be  about  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty  feet  long,  but  was  about  fifty 
feet  farther  on,  where  a  dam  of  only  forty  feet 
was  required.  This  dam  when  completed  bowed 
seven  feet  against  the  enclosed  water.  The 
beaver  commenced  building  at  the  end  nearest 
the  grove  of  aspens,  pulling  and  dragging  the 
poles  the  fifty  feet  to  it.  They  laid  these  aspen 
poles,  which  were  two  to  five  inches  in  diameter 
and  from  four  to  twelve  feet  in  length,  at  right 
angles  to  the  length  of  the  dam,'  and  usually 
placed  the  large  end  upstream  or  against  the  cur- 
rent. But  the  water  was  shallow,  and  the  trans- 
portation of  these  poles  to  the  dam  was  difficult. 
Accordingly  a  ditch  or  canal  was  dug  from  the 
77 


3n 

grove  to  the  place  by  the  dam  where  the  work 
was  going  on.  This  ditch  was  about  twenty-five 
inches  wide  and  fifteen  deep.  The  waters  filled 
it  and  thereby  afforded  an  easy  means  of  float- 
ing or  transporting  the  poles  from  the  grove  to 
the  place  where  they  were  being  used.  This 
ditch  was  carried  forward  along  the  upper  line 
of  the  dam,  and  several  feet  in  advance  of  the 
spot  where  the  outbuilding  work  was  advanc- 
ing. Upon  the  earth  thrown  up  from  this  were 
laid  the  upper  or  high  ends  of  the  poles.  When 
the  dam  was  finally  completed,  it  was  approxi- 
mately eight  feet  wide  on  the  base  and  stood  four 
feet  high.  As  soon  as  it  was  completed,  the 
beaver  stuffed  the  water-front  with  mud  and 
grass  roots,  which  were  obtained  by  digging  from 
the  construction  ditch  immediately  in  front  of 
the  dam.  In  other  words,  they  enlarged  their 
pole-floating  ditch  above  the  dam  into  a  deeper 
and  wider  channel,  and  used  this  excavated  ma- 
terial for  strengthening  and  waterproofing  the 
dam. 

The  longest  beaver  dam  that  I  have  ever  seen 
or  measured  was  on  the  Jefferson  River  near 
78 


©ant 

Three  Forks,  Montana.  This  was  2140  feet  long. 
Most  of  it  was  old.  More  than  half  of  it  was  less 
than  six  feet  in  height;  two  short  sections  of  it, 
however,  were  twenty-three  feet  wide  at  the  base, 
five  on  top,  and  fourteen  feet  high. 


ONE  autumn  I  watched  a  beaver  colony  and 
observed  the  customs  of  its  primitive  inhab- 
itants as  they  gathered  their  harvest  for  win- 
ter. It  was  the  Spruce  Tree  Colony,  the  most 
attractive  of  the  sixteen  beaver  municipalities 
on  the  big  moraine  on  the  slope  of  Long's 
Peak. 

The  first  evening  I  concealed  myself  close  to 
the  beaver  house  by  the  edge  of  the  pond.  Just 
at  sunset  a  large,  aged  beaver  of  striking,  patri- 
archal appearance  rose  in  the  water  by  the  house, 
and  swam  slowly,  silently  round  the  pond.  He 
kept  close  to  the  shore  and  appeared  to  be  scout- 
ing to  see  if  an  enemy  lurked  near.  On  com- 
pleting the  circuit  of  the  pond,  he  climbed  upon 
the  end  of  a  log  that  was  thrust  a  few  feet  out 
into  the  water.  Presently  several  other  beaver 
appeared  in  the  water  close  to  the  house.  A  few 
of  these  at  once  left  the  pond  and  nosed  quietly 
about  on  the  shore.  The  others  swam  about  for 
83 


3n 

some  minutes  and  then  joined  their  comrades  on 
land,  where  all  rested  for  a  time. 

Meanwhile  the  aged  beaver  had  lifted  a  small 
aspen  limb  out  of  the  water  and  was  squatted  on 
the  log,  leisurely  eating  bark.  Before  many  min- 
utes elapsed  the  other  beavers  became  restless 
and  finally  started  up  the  slope  in  a  runway. 
They  traveled  slowly  in  single  file  and  one  by 
one  vanished  amid  the  tall  sedge.  The  old  beaver 
slipped  noiselessly  into  the  water,  and  a  series  of 
low  waves  pointed  toward  the  house.  It  was  dark 
as  I  stole  away  in  silence  for  the  night,  and  Mars 
was  gently  throbbing  in  the  black  water. 

This  was  an  old  beaver  settlement,  and  the 
numerous  harvests  gathered  by  its  inhabitants 
had  long  since  exhausted  the  near-by  growths  of 
aspen,  the  bark  of  which  is  the  favorite  food  of 
North  American  beaver,  though  the  bark  of  the 
willow,  cottonwood,  alder,  and  birch  is  also  eaten. 
An  examination  of  the  aspen  supply,  together 
with  the  lines  of  transportation,  —  the  runways, 
canals,  and  ponds,  —  indicated  that  this  year's 
harvest  would  have  to  be  brought  a  long  distance. 
The  place  it  would  come  from  was  an  aspen 
84 


grove  far  up  the  slope,  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
distant  from  the  main  house,  and  perhaps  a  hun- 
dred and  twenty  feet  above  it.  In  this  grove  I 
cut  three  notches  in  the  trunks  of  several  trees 
to  enable  me  to  identify  them  whether  in  the 
garnered  pile  by  a  house  or  along  the  line  of 
transportation  to  it. 

The  grounds  of  this  colony  occupied  several 
acres  on  a  terraced,  moderately  steep  slope  of  a 
mountain  moraine.  Along  one  side  rushed  a 
swift  stream  on  which  the  colonists  maintained 
three  but  little  used  ponds.  On  the  opposite  side 
were  the  slope  and  summit  of  the  moraine.  There 
was  a  large  pond  at  the  bottom,  and  one  or  two 
small  ponds,  or  water-filled  basins,  dotted  each 
of  the  five  terraces  which  rose  above.  The  entire 
grounds  were  perforated  with  subterranean  pas- 
sageways or  tunnels. 

Beaver  commonly  fill  their  ponds  by  damming 
a  brook  or  a  river.  But  this  colony  obtained  most 
of  its  water-supply  from  springs  which  poured  forth 
abundantly  on  the  uppermost  terrace,  where  the 
water  was  led  into  one  pond  and  a  number  of 
basins.  Overflowing  from  these,  it  either  made  a 
85 


merry  little  cascade  or  went  to  lubricate  a  slide 
on  the  short  slopes  which  led  to  the  ponds  on 
the  terrace  below.  The  waters  from  all  terraces 
were  gathered  into  a  large  pond  at  the  bottom. 
This  pond  measured  six  hundred  feet  in  cir- 
cumference. The  crooked  and  almost  encircling 
grass-grown  dam  was  six  feet  high  and  four  hun- 
dred feet  long.  In  its  upper  edge  stood  the  main 
house,  which  was  eight  feet  high  and  forty  feet 
in  circumference.  There  was  also  another  house 
on  one  of  the  terraces. 

After  notching  the  aspens  I  spent  some  time 
exploring  the  colony  grounds  and  did  not  return 
to  the  marked  trees  until  forty-eight  hours  had 
elapsed.  Harvest  had  begun,  and  one  of  the 
largest  notched  trees  had  been  felled  and  re- 
moved. Its  gnawed  stump  was  six  inches  in  di- 
ameter and  stood  fifteen  inches  high.  The  limbs 
had  been  trimmed  off,  and  a  number  of  these  lay 
scattered  about  the  stump.  The  trunk,  which 
must  have  been  about  eighteen  feet  long,  had 
disappeared,  cut  into  lengths  of  from  three  to  six 
feet,  probably,  and  started  toward  the  harvest 
pile.  Wondering  for  which  house  these  logs  were 
86 


intended,  I  followed,  hoping  to  trace  and  trail 
them  to  the  house,  or  find  them  en  route.  From 
the  spot  where  they  were  cut,  they  had  evidently 
been  rolled  down  a  steep,  grassy  seventy-foot 
slope,  at  the  bottom  of  this  dragged  an  equal  dis- 
tance over  a  level  stretch  among  some  lodgepole 
pines,  and  then  pushed  or  dragged  along  a  nar- 
row runway  that  had  been  cut  through  a  rank 
growth  of  willows.  Once  through  the  willows, 
they  were  pushed  into  the  uppermost  pond.  They 
were  taken  across  this,  forced  over  the  dam  on 
the  opposite  side,  and  shot  down  a  slide  into  the 
pond  which  contained  the  smaller  house.  Only 
forty-eight  hours  before,  the  little  logs  which  I 
was  following  were  in  a  tree,  and  now  I  expected 
to  find  them  by  this  house.  It  was  good  work  to 
have  got  them  here  so  quickly,  I  thought.  But 
no  logs  could  be  found  by  the  house  or  in  the 
pond!  The  folks  at  this  place  had  not  yet  laid 
up  anything  for  winter.  The  logs  must  have  gone 
farther. 

On  the  opposite  side  of  this  pond  I  found  where 
the  logs  had  been  dragged  across  the  broad  dam 
and  then  heaved  into  a  long,  wet  slide  which 
87 


3n 

landed  them  in  a  small,  shallow  harbor  in  the 
grass.  From  this  point  a  canal  about  eighty  feet 
long  ran  around  the  brow  of  the  terrace  and  ended 
at  the  top  of  a  long  slide  which  reached  to  the  big 
pond.  This  canal  was  new  and  probably  had  been 
dug  especially  for  this  harvest.  For  sixty  feet  of 
its  length  it  was  quite  regular  in  form  and  had  an 
average  width  of  thirty  inches  and  a  depth  of  four- 
teen. The  mud  dug  in  making  it  was  piled  evenly 
along  the  lower  side.  Altogether  it  looked  more 
like  the  work  of  a  careful  man  with  a  shovel  than 
of  beaver  without  tools.  Seepage  and  overflow 
from  the  ponds  above  filled  and  flowed  slowly 
through  it  and  out  at  the  farther  end,  where  it 
swept  down  the  long  slide  into  the  big  pond. 
Through  this  canal  the  logs  had  been  taken  one 
by  one.  At  the  farther  end  I  found  the  butt-end 
log.  It  probably  had  been  too  heavy  to  heave  out 
of  the  canal,  but  tracks  in  the  mud  indicated  that 
there  was  a  hard  tussle  before  it  was  abandoned. 
The  pile  of  winter  supplies  was  started.  Close 
to  the  big  house  a  few  aspen  leaves  fluttered  on 
twigs  in  the  water;  evidently  these  twigs  were 
attached  to  limbs  or  larger  pieces  of  aspen  that 
88 


Cinte  xotf  0 


were  piled  beneath  the  surface.  Could  it  be  that 
the  aspen  which  I  had  marked  on  the  mountain- 
side a  quarter  of  a  mile  distant  so  short  a  time 
before,  and  which  I  had  followed  over  slope  and 
slide,  through  canal  and  basin,  was  now  piled  on 
the  bottom  of  this  pond?  I  waded  out  into  the 
water,  prodded  about  with  a  pole,  and  found  sev- 
eral smaller  logs.  Dragging  one  of  these  to  the 
surface,  I  found  there  were  three  notches  in  it. 

Evidently  these  heavy  green  tree  cuttings  had 
been  sunk  to  the  bottom  simply  by  the  piling  of 
other  similar  cuttings  upon  them.  With  this 
heavy  material  in  the  still  water  a  slight  contact 
with  the  bottom  would  prevent  the  drifting  of  ac- 
cumulated cuttings  until  a  heavy  pile  could  be 
formed.  However,  in  deep  or  swift  water  I  have 
noticed  that  an  anchorage  for  the  first  few  pieces 
was  secured  by  placing  these  upon  the  lower  slope 
of  the  house  or  against  the  dam. 

Scores  of  aspens  were  felled  in  the  grove  where 
the  notched  ones  were.  They  were  trimmed,  cut 
into  sections,  and  limbs,  logs,  and  all  taken  over 
the  route  of  the  one  I  had  followed,  and  at  last 
placed  in  a  pile  beside  the  big  house.  This  har- 
89 


3n 

vest-gathering  went  on  for  a  month.  All  about 
was  busy,  earnest  preparation  for  winter.  The 
squirrels  from  the  tree-tops  kept  a  rattling  rain 
of  cones  on  the  leaf-strewn  forest  floor,  the  cheery 
chipmunk  foraged  and  frolicked  among  the  with- 
ered leaves  and  plants,  while  aspens  with  leaves 
of  gold  fell  before  the  ivory  sickles  of  the  beaver. 
Splendid  glimpses,  grand  views,  I  had  of  this 
strange  harvest-home.  How  busy  the  beavers 
were!  They  were  busy  in  the  grove  on  the  steep 
mountainside ;  they  tugged  logs  across  the  run- 
ways; they  hurried  them  across  the  water-basins, 
wrestled  with  them  in  canals,  and  merrily  piled 
them  by  the  rude  house  in  the  water.  And  I 
watched  them  through  the  changing  hours;  I 
saw  their  shadowy  activity  in  the  starry,  silent 
night;  I  saw  them  hopefully  leave  home  for  the 
harvest  groves  in  the  serene  twilight,  and  I 
watched  them  working  busily  in  the  light  of  the 
noonday  sun. 

Most  of  the  aspens  were  cut  off  between  thir- 
teen and  fifteen  inches  above  the  ground.  A  few 
stumps  were  less  than  five  inches  high,  while  a 
number  were  four  feet  high.  These  high  cuttings 
90 


were  probably  made  from  reclining  trunks  of 
lodged  aspens  which  were  afterward  removed. 
The  average  diameter  of  the  aspens  cut  was  four 
and  one  half  inches  at  the  top  of  the  stump. 
Numerous  seedlings  of  an  inch  diameter  were 
cut,  and  the  largest  tree  felled  for  this  harvest 
measured  fourteen  inches  across  the  stump.  This 
had  been  laid  low  only  a  few  hours  before  I  found 
it,  and  a  bushel  of  white  chips  and  cuttings  en- 
circled the  lifeless  stump  like  a  wreath.  In  fall- 
ing, the  top  had  become  entangled  in  an  alder 
thicket  and  lodged  six  feet  from  the  ground.  It 
remained  in  this  position  for  several  days  and 
was  apparently  abandoned;  but  the  last  time  I 
went  to  see  it  the  alders  which  upheld  it  were 
being  cut  away.  Although  the  alders  were  thick 
upon  the  ground,  only  those  which  had  upheld 
the  aspen  had  been  cut.  It  may  be  that  the 
beaver  which  felled  them  looked  and  thought 
before  they  went  ahead  with  this  cutting. 

Why  had  this  and  several  other  large  aspens 
been  left  uncut  in  a  place  where  all  were  con- 
venient for  harvest  ?  All  other  neighboring  aspens 
were  cut  years  ago.  One  explanation  is  that  the 


beaver  realized  that  the  tops  of  the  aspens  were  en- 
tangled and  interlocked  in  the  limbs  of  crowding 
spruces  and  would  not  fall  if  cut  off  at  the  bottom. 
This  and  one  other  aspen  were  the  only  large 
ones  that  were  felled,  and  the  tops  of  these  had 
been  recently  released  by  the  overturning  of  some 
spruces  and  the  breaking  of  several  branches  on 
others.  Other  scattered  large  aspens  were  left 
uncut,  but  all  of  these  were  clasped  in  the  arms 
of  near-by  spruces. 

It  was  the  habit  of  these  colonists  to  transfer 
a  tree  to  the  harvest  pile  promptly  after  cutting 
it  down.  But  one  morning  I  found  logs  on  slides 
and  in  canals,  and  unfinished  work  in  the  grove, 
as  though  everything  had  been  suddenly  dropped 
in  the  night  when  work  was  at  its  height.  Coy- 
otes had  howled  freely  during  the  night,  but  this 
was  not  uncommon.  In  going  over  the  grounds 
I  found  the  explanation  of  this  untidy  work  in 
a  bear  track  and  numerous  wolf  tracks,  freshly 
moulded  in  the  muddy  places. 

After  the  bulk  of  the  harvest  was  gathered,  I 
went  one  day  to  the  opposite  side  of  the  moraine 
and  briefly  observed  the  methods  of  the  Island 
92 


beaver  colony.  The  ways  of  the  two  colonies  were 
in  some  things  very  different.  In  the  Spruce  Tree 
Colony  the  custom  was  to  move  the  felled  aspen 
promptly  to  the  harvest  pile.  In  the  Island  Col- 
ony the  custom  was  to  cut  down  most  of  the 
harvest  before  transporting  any  of  it  to  the  pile 
beside  the  house.  Of  the  one  hundred  and  sixty- 
two  trees  that  had  been  felled  for  this  harvest, 
one  hundred  and  twenty-seven  were  still  lying 
where  they  fell.  However,  the  work  of  transport- 
ing was  getting  under  way ;  a  few  logs  were  in 
the  pile  beside  the  house,  and  numerous  others 
were  scattered  along  the  canals,  runways,  and 
slides  between  the  house  and  the  harvest  grove. 
There  was  more  wasted  labor,  too,  in  the 
Island  Colony.  This  was  noticeable  in  the  at- 
tempts that  had  been  made  to  fell  limb-entangled 
trees  that  could  not  fall.  One  five-inch  aspen  had 
three  times  been  cut  off  at  the  bottom.  The  third 
cut  was  more  than  three  feet  from  the  ground, 
and  was  made  by  a  beaver  working  from  the  top 
of  a  fallen  log.  Still  this  high-cut  aspen  refused 
to  come  down  and  there  it  hung  like  a  collapsed 
balloon  entangled  in  tree-tops. 
93 


Prowling  hunters  have  compelled  most  beaver 
to  work  at  night,  but  the  Spruce  Tree  Colony 
was  an  isolated  one,  and  occasionally  its  members 
worked  and  even  played  in  the  sunshine.  Each 
day  I  secluded  myself,  kept  still,  and  waited ;  and 
on  a  few  occasions  watched  them  as  they  worked 
in  the  light. 

One  windy  day,  just  as  I  was  unroping  myself 
from  the  shaking  limb  of  a  spruce,  I  saw  four 
beaver  plodding  along  in  single  file  beneath. 
They  had  come  out  of  a  hole  between  the  roots 
of  the  spruce.  At  an  aspen  growth  about  fifty  feet 
distant  they  separated.  Though  they  had  been 
closely  assembled,  each  appeared  utterly  obliv- 
ious of  the  presence  of  the  others.  One  squatted 
on  the  ground  by  an  aspen,  took  a  bite  of  bark 
out  of  it,  and  ate  leisurely.  By  and  by  he  rose, 
clasped  the  aspen  with  fore  paws,  and  began  to 
bite  chips  from  it  systematically.  He  was  delib- 
erately cutting  it  down.  The  most  aged  beaver 
waddled  near  an  aspen,  gazed  into  its  top  for  a 
few  seconds,  then  moved  away  about  ten  feet  and 
started  to  fell  a  five-inch  aspen.  The  one  rejected 
was  entangled  at  the  top.  Presently  the  third 
94 


beaver  selected  a  tree,  and  after  some  trouble  in 
getting  comfortably  seated,  or  squatted,  also  began 
cutting.  The  fourth  beaver  disappeared  and  I 
did  not  see  him  again.  While  I  was  looking  for 
this  one  the  huge,  aged  beaver  whose  venerable 
appearance  had  impressed  me  the  first  evening 
appeared  on  the  scene.  He  came  out  of  a  hole 
beneath  some  spruces  about  a  hundred  feet  dis- 
tant. He  looked  neither  to  right  nor  to  left,  nor 
up  nor  down,  as  he  ambled  toward  the  aspen 
growth.  When  about  halfway  there  he  wheeled 
suddenly  and  took  an  uneasy  survey  of  the  open  he 
had  traversed,  as  though  he  had  heard  an  enemy 
behind.  Then  with  apparently  stolid  indifference 
he  went  on  leisurely,  and  for  a  time  paused 
among  the  cutters,  which  did  nothing  to  indicate 
that  they  realized  his  presence.  He  ate  some  bark 
from  a  green  limb  on  the  ground,  moved  on,  and 
went  into  the  hole  beneath  me.  He  appeared  so 
large  that  I  afterward  measured  the  distance  be- 
tween the  two  aspens  where  he  paused.  He  was 
not  less  than  three  and  a  half  feet  long  and  prob- 
ably weighed  fifty  pounds.  He  had  all  his  toes; 
there  was  no  white  spot  on  his  body ;  in  fact,  there 
95 


was  neither  mark  nor  blemish  by  which  I  could 
positively  identify  him.  Yet  I  feel  that  in  my 
month  around  the  colony  I  beheld  the  patriarch 
of  the  first  evening  in  several  scenes  of  action. 

Sixty-seven  minutes  after  the  second  beaver 
began  cutting  he  made  a  brief  pause ;  then  he 
suddenly  thudded  the  ground  with  his  tail,  hur- 
riedly took  out  a  few  more  chips,  and  ran  away, 
with  the  other  two  beaver  a  little  in  advance,  just 
as  his  four-inch  aspen  settled  over  and  fell.  All 
paused  for  a  time  close  to  the  hole  beneath  me, 
and  then  the  old  beaver  returned  to  his  work. 
The  one  that  had  felled  his  tree  followed  closely 
and  at  once  began  on  another  aspen.  The  other 
beaver,  with  his  aspen  half  cut  off,  went  into  the 
hole  and  did  not  again  come  out.  By  and  by  an 
old  and  a  young  beaver  came  out  of  the  hole. 
The  young  one  at  once  began  cutting  limbs  off 
the  recently  felled  aspen,  while  the  other  began 
work  on  the  half-cut  tree ;  but  he  ignored  the  work 
already  done,  and  finally  severed  the  trunk  about 
four  inches  above  the  cut  made  by  the  other. 
Suddenly  the  old  beaver  whacked  the  ground 
and  ran,  but  at  thirty  feet  distant  he  paused  and 
96 


nervously  thumped  the  ground  with  his  tail,  as 
his  aspen  slowly  settled  and  fell.  Then  he  went 
into  the  hole  beneath  me. 

This  year's  harvest  was  so  much  larger  than 
usual  that  it  may  be  the  population  of  this  colony 
had  been  increased  by  the  arrival  of  emigrants 
from  a  persecuted  colony  down  in  the  valley. 
The  total  harvest  numbered  four  hundred  and 
forty-three  trees.  These  made  a  harvest  pile  four 
feet  high  and  ninety  feet  in  circumference.  A 
thick  covering  of  willows  was  placed  on  top  of 
the  harvest  pile, —  I  cannot  tell  for  what  reason 
unless  it  was  to  sink  all  the  aspens  below  reach 
of  the  ice.  This  bulk  of  stores  together  with  num- 
erous roots  of  willow  and  water  plants,  which  are 
eaten  in  the  water  from  the  bottom  of  the  pond, 
would  support  a  numerous  beaver  population 
through  the  days  of  ice  and  snow. 

When  I  took  my  last  tour  through  the  colony 
everything  was  ready  for  the  long  and  cold  winter. 
Dams  were  in  repair  and  ponds  were  brimming 
over  with  water,  the  fresh  coats  of  mud  on  the 
houses  were  freezing  to  defy  enemies,  and  a  boun- 
tiful harvest  was  home.  Harvest-gathering  is  full 
97 


3n 

of  hope  and  romance.  What  a  joy  it  must  be  to 
every  man  or  animal  who  has  a  hand  in  it !  What 
a  satisfaction,  too,  for  all  dependent  upon  a  har- 
vest, to  know  that  there  is  abundance  stored  for 
all  the  frosty  days ! 

The  people  of  this  wild,  strange,  picturesque 
colony  had  planned  and  prepared  well.  I  wished 
them  a  winter  unvisited  by  cruel  fate  or  foe,  and 
trusted  that  when  June  came  again  the  fat  and 
furry  young  beavers  would  play  with  the  aged 
one  amid  the  tiger  lilies  in  the  shadows  of  the 
big  spruce  trees. 


o  successive  dry  years  had  greatly  reduced 
the  water-level  of  Lily  Lake,  and  the  con- 
sequent shallowness  of  the  water  made  a  serious 
situation  for  its  beaver  inhabitants.  This  lake 
covered  about  ten  acres,  and  was  four  feet  deep 
in  the  deepest  part,  while  over  nine  tenths  of  the 
area  the  water  was  two  feet  or  less  in  depth.  It 
was  supplied  by  springs.  Early  in  the  autumn  of 
1911  the  water  completely  disappeared  from  about 
one  half  of  the  area,  and  most  of  the  remainder 
became  so  shallow  that  beaver  could  no  longer 
swim  beneath  the  surface.  This  condition  exposed 
them  to  the  attack  of  enemies  and  made  the 
transportation  of  supplies  to  the  house  slow 
and  difficult. 

In  the  lake  the  beaver  had  dug  an  extensive 
system  of  deep  canals,  —  the  work  of  years.  By 
means  of  these  deep  canals  the  beaver  were  able 
to  use  the  place  until  the  last,  for  these  were  full 
of  water  even  after  the  lake-bed  was  completely 
101 


exposed.  One  day  in  October  while  passing  the 
lake,  I  noticed  a  coyote  on  the  farther  shore  stop 
suddenly,  prick  up  his  ears,  and  give  alert  atten- 
tion to  an  agitated  forward  movement  in  the 
shallow  water  of  a  canal.  Then  he  plunged  into 
the  water  and  endeavored  to  seize  a  beaver  that 
was  struggling  forward  through  water  that  was 
too  shallow  for  his  heavy  body.  Although  this 
beaver  made  his  escape,  other  members  of  the 
colony  may  not  have  been  so  fortunate. 

The  drouth  continued  and  by  mid-October  the 
lake  went  entirely  dry  except  in  the  canals.  Off  in 
one  corner  stood  the  beaver  house,  a  tiny  rounded 
and  solitary  hill  in  the  miniature  black  plain  of 
lake-bed.  With  one  exception  the  beaver  aban- 
doned the  site  and  moved  on  to  other  scenes,  I 
know  not  where.  One  old  beaver  remained. 
Whether  he  did  this  through  the  fear  of  not 
being  equal  to  the  overland  journey  across  the 
dry  rocky  ridge  and  down  into  Wind  River,  or 
whether  from  deep  love  of  the  old  home  associa- 
tions, no  one  can  say.  But  he  remained  and  en- 
deavored to  make  provision  for  the  oncoming 
winter.  Close  to  the  house  he  dug  or  enlarged 
102 


LAKE-BED  CANALS  AT  LILY   LAKE,    OCTOBER,  IQII 


SECTION  OF   A  750- FOOT  CANAL  AT  LILY   LAKE 
Here  five  feet  wide  and  three  feet  deep 


a  well  that  was  about  six  feet  in  diameter  and 
four  feet  in  depth.  Seepage  filled  this  hole,  and 
into  it  he  piled  a  number  of  green  aspen  chunks 
and  cuttings,  a  meagre  food-supply  for  the  long, 
cold  winter  that  followed.  Extreme  cold  began 
in  early  November,  and  not  until  April  was  there 
a  thaw. 

Before  the  lake-bed  was  snow-covered,  all  the 
numerous  canals  and  basins  which  the  beaver  had 
excavated  could  be  plainly  seen  and  examined. 
The  magnitude  of  the  work  which  the  beaver  had 
performed  in  making  these  is  beyond  compre- 
hension. I  took  a  series  of  photographs  of  these 
excavations  and  made  numerous  measurements. 
To  the  north  of  the  house  a  pool  had  been  dug 
that  was  three  feet  deep,  thirty  feet  long,  and 
about  twenty  wide.  There  extended  from  this  a 
canal  that  was  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  long. 
The  food  basin  was  thirty  feet  wide  and  four  feet 
deep.  This  had  a  canal  connection  with  the  house. 
In  the  bottom  of  the  basin  was  one  of  the  feeble 
springs  which  supply  the  lake.  Another  canal, 
which  extended  three  hundred  and  fifty  feet  in  a 
northerly  direction  from  the  house,  was  from  three 
103 


3 


n  (eafcer  TUorfb 


to  four  feet  wide  and  three  feet  deep.  The  largest 
ditch  or  canal  was  seven  hundred  and  fifty  feet 
long  and  three  feet  deep  throughout  This  ex- 
tended eastward,  then  northeasterly,  and  for  one 
hundred  feet  was  five  feet  wide.  In  the  remaining 
six  hundred  and  fifty  feet  it  was  three  to  four  feet 
wide.  There  were  a  number  of  minor  ditches  and 
canals  connecting  the  larger  ones,  and  altogether 
the  extent  of  all  made  an  impressive  show  in  the 
empty  lake-basin. 

Meantime  the  old  beaver  had  a  hard  winter. 
The  cold  weather  persisted,  and  finally  the  well 
in  which  he  had  deposited  winter  food  froze  to 
the  bottom.  Even  the  entrance-holes  into  the 
house  were  frozen  shut.  This  sealed  him  in.  The 
old  fellow,  whose  teeth  were  worn  and  whose 
claws  were  bad,  apparently  tried  in  vain  to  break 
out.  On  returning  from  three  months'  absence, 
two  friends  and  I  investigated  the  old  beaver's 
condition.  We  broke  through  the  frozen  walls  of 
the  house  and  crawled  in.  The  old  fellow  was 
still  alive,  though  greatly  emaciated.  For  some 
time  —  I  know  not  how  long  —  he  had  subsisted 
on  the  wood  and  the  bark  of  some  green  sticks 
104 


t ansporfof ton 

which  had  been  built  into  an  addition  of  the  house 
during  the  autumn.  We  cut  several  green  aspens 
into  short  lengths  and  threw  them  into  the  house. 
The  broken  hole  was  then  closed.  The  old  fel- 
low accepted  these  cheerfully.  For  six  weeks  as- 
pens were  occasionally  thrown  to  him,  and  at  the 
end  of  this  time  the  spring  warmth  had  melted 
the  deep  snow.  The  water  rose  and  filled  the  pond 
and  unsealed  the  entrance  to  the  house,  and  again 
the  old  fellow  emerged  into  the  water.  The  fol- 
lowing summer  he  was  joined,  or  rejoined,  by  a 
number  of  other  beaver. 

In  many  localities  the  canals  or  ditches  dug 
and  used  by  the  beaver  form  their  most  necessary 
and  extensive  works.  These  canals  require  enor- 
mous labor  and  much  skill.  In  point  of  interest 
they  even  excel  the  house  and  the  dam.  It  is  re- 
markable that  of  the  thousands  of  stories  concern- 
ing the  beaver  only  a  few  have  mentioned  the 
beaver  canals.  These  are  labor-saving  improve- 
ments, and  not  only  enable  the  beaver  to  live 
easily  and  safely  in  places  where  he  otherwise 
could  not  live  at  all,  but  apparently  they  allow 
him  to  live  happily.  The  excavations  made  in 
105 


taking  material  for  house  or  dam  commonly  are 
turned  to  useful  purpose.  The  beaver  not  only 
builds  his  mound-like  house,  but  uses  the  basin 
thus  formed  in  excavating  earthy  material  for  the 
house  for  a  winter  food  depository.  Ofttimes,  too, 
in  building  the  dam  he  does  it  by  piling  up  the 
material  dug  from  a  ditch  which  runs  parallel 
and  close  to  the  dam,  and  which  is  useful  to 
him  as  a  deep  waterway  after  the  dam  is  com- 
pleted. 

In  transporting  trees  for  food-supply,  water 
transportation  is  so  much  easier  and  safer  than 
land,  that  wherever  the  immediate  surroundings 
of  the  pond  are  comparatively  level  the  beaver 
endeavors  to  lead  water  out  to  tree  groves  by 
digging  a  canal  from  the  edge  of  the  pond  to 
these  groves.  The  felled  trees  are  by  this  means 
easily  floated  into  the  pond.  One  of  the  simplest 
forms  of  beaver  canal  is  a  narrow,  outward  exten- 
sion of  the  pond.  This  varies  in  length  from  a 
few  yards  to  one  hundred  feet  or  more. 

Another  and  fairly  common  form  of  canal  is 
one  that  is  built  across  low  narrow  necks  of  land 
which  thrust  out  into  large  beaver  ponds,  or  on 
106 


narrow  stretches  of  land  around  which  crooked 
streams  wander. 

The  majority  of  beaver  ponds  are  comparatively 
shallow  over  the  greater  portion  of  their  area. 
In  many  cases  it  is  not  easy,  or  even  possible,  to 
deepen  them.  They  may  be  so  shallow  that  the 
pond  freezes  to  the  bottom  in  winter  except  in 
its  small  deeper  portion.  The  shallow  ponds  are 
made  more  usable  by  a  number  of  canals  in  the 
bottom.  These  canals  assure  deep-water  stretches 
under  all  conditions.  Most  beaver  ponds  have  a 
'canal  that  closely  parallels  the  dam.  In  some  in- 
stances this  is  extended  around  the  pond  a  few 
yards  inside  the  shore-line.  Two  canals  usually 
extend  from  the  house.  One  of  these  connects 
with  the  canal  by  the  dam,  the  other  runs  to  the 
place  on  the  shore  (commonly  at  the  end  of  a  trail 
or  slide)  most  visited  by  the  beaver. 

In  Jefferson  Valley,  Montana,  not  far  from 
Three  Forks,  I  enjoyed  the  examination  of  num- 
erous beaver  workings,  and  made  measurements 
of  the  most  interesting  system  of  beaver  canals 
that  I  have  ever  seen.  The  beaver  house  for 
which  these  canals  did  service  was  situated  on 
107 


the  south  bank  of  the  river,  about  three  feet  above 
the  summer  level  of  the  water  and  about  two 
hundred  feet  north  of  the  hilly  edge  of  the  valley. 
From  the  river  a  crescent-shaped  canal,  about 
thirty-five  feet  in  length,  had  been  dug  halfway 
around  the  base  of  the  house.  Connected  with 
this  xvas  a  basin  for  winter  food ;  this  was  five 
feet  deep  and  thirty-five  feet  in  diameter.  From 
this  a  canal  extended  southward  two  hundred 
and  seven  feet.  One  hundred  and  ten  feet  distant 
from  the  house  was  a  boulder  that  was  about  ten 
feet  in  diameter.  This  was  imbedded  in  about 
two  feet  of  soil.  Around  this  boulder  the  canal 
made  a  detour,  and  then  resumed  its  comparatively 
straight  line  southward. 

Over  the  greater  portion  of  its  length  this 
canal  was  four  feet  wide,  and  at  no  point  was  it 
narrower  than  three  feet.  Its  average  depth  was 
twenty-eight  inches.  For  one  hundred  and  forty- 
seven  feet  it  ran  through  an  approximately  level 
stretch  of  the  valley,  and  seepage  filled  it  with 
water.  A  low,  semi-circular  dam,  about  fifty  feet 
in  length,  crossed  it  at  the  one-hundred -and 
forty-seven-foot  mark,  and  served  to  catch  and 
108 


/f 


IflfNlJ! 


on  jfactftffe* 


run  seepage  water  into  it,  and  also  to  act  as  a  wall 
across  the  canal  to  hold  the  water.  The  most 
southerly  sixty  feet  of  this  canal  on  the  edge  of  the 
foothills  ran  uphill,  and  was  about  four  feet  deep 
at  the  upper  end,  four  feet  higher  than  the  end  by 
the  house.  The  dam  across  it  was  supplemented 
by  a  wall  forty-eight  feet  further  on.  This  wall 
was  simply  a  short  dam  across  the  canal,  in  a 
part  that  was  inclined,  and  plainly  for  the  purpose 
of  retaining  water  in  the  canal.  The  upper  part 
of  the  canal  was  filled  with  water  by  a  streamlet 
from  off  the  slope.  Apparently  this  canal  was 
old,  for  there  was  growing  on  its  banks  near  the 
house,  a  spruce  tree,  four  inches  in  diameter,  that 
had  grown  since  the  canal  was  made. 

The  wall  or  small  dam  which  beaver  build 
across  canals  that  are  inclined  represents  an  in- 
teresting phase  of  beaver  development.  That 
these  walls  are  built  for  the  purpose  of  retaining 
water  in  the  canal  appears  certain.  They  are 
most  numerous  in  canals  of  steepest  incline, 
though  rarely  less  than  twenty  feet  apart.  I  have 
not  seen  a  wall  in  an  almost  dead-level  canal,  ex- 
cept it  was  there  for  the  purpose  of  raising  the 
109 


height  of  the  water.  This  wall  or  buttress  is  after 
all  but  a  dam,  and  like  most  dams  it  is  built  for 
the  purpose  of  raising  and  maintaining  the  level 
of  water. 

Extending  at  right  angles  westward  from  the 
end  of  the  old  canal  was  a  newer  one  of  two 
hundred  and  twenty-one  feet.  A  wall  separated 
and  united  the  two.  One  hundred  and  sixty  feet 
of  this  new  canal  ran  along  the  contour  of  a  hill, 
approximately  at  a  dead  level.  Then  came  a  wall, 
and  from  this  the  last  sixty-one  feet  extended 
southward  up  a  shallow  ravine.  In  this  part  there 
were  two  walls.  The  upper  end  of  the  sixty-one- 
foot  extension  was  nine  feet  higher  than  the 
house,  and  four  hundred  and  twenty-eight  feet  dis- 
tant from  it.  The  two-hundred-and-twenty-one- 
foot  extension  was  from  twenty-six  to  thirty-four 
inches  wide,  and  averaged  twenty-two  inches 
deep.  The  entire  new  part  was  supplied  with 
spring  water,  which  the  beaver  had  diverted  from 
a  ravine  to  the  west  and  led  by  a  seventy-foot 
ditch  into  the  upper  end  of  their  canal.  Thirty 
feet  from  the  end  of  the  canal  were  two  burrows, 
evidently  safe  places  into  which  the  beaver  could 
no 


retreat  in  case  of  sudden  attack  from  wolves  or 
other  foe.  There  were  two  other  of  these  bur- 
rows, one  at  the  outer  end  of  the  old  canal  and 
the  other  alongside  the  boulder  one  hundred  and 
ten  feet  from  the  house. 

At  the  time  I  saw  these  canals,  the  only  trees 
near  were  those  of  an  aspen  grove  which  sur- 
rounded the  extreme  end.  It  was  autumn,  and  on 
both  tributary  slopes  by  the  end  of  the  canal, 
aspens  were  being  cut,  dragged,  and  rolled  down 
these  slopes  into  the  upper  end  of  the  canal,  then 
floated  through  its  waters,  dragged  over  and 
across  the  walls,  and  at  last  piled  up  for  winter 
food  in  the  basin  by  the  house.  In  all  probability 
this  long,  large  canal  had  been  built  a  few  yards 
at  a  time,  being  extended  as  the  trees  near-by 
were  cut  down  and  used. 

Where  beaver  long  inhabit  a  locality  it  is  not 
uncommon  for  them  to  have  two  or  three  distinct 
and  well-used  trails  from  points  on  the  water's 
edge  which  lead  into  neighboring  groves  or  tree- 
clumps.  These  are  the  beaten  tracks  traveled  by 
the  beaver  as  they  go  forth  from  the  water  for 
food,  and  over  which  they  drag  their  trees  and 
in 


saplings  into  the  water.  On  steep  slopes  by  the 
water  these  are  called  slides.  This  name  is  also 
given  to  places  in  the  dam  over  which  beaver 
frequently  pass  in  their  outgoings  and  incomings. 
Commonly  these  trails  avoid  ridges  and  ground 
swells  by  keeping  in  the  bottom  of  a  ravine; 
logs  are  cut  through  and  rolled  out  of  the  way, 
or  a  tunnel  driven  beneath  ;  obstructions  are  re- 
moved, or  a  good  way  made  round  them.  Their 
log  roads  compare  favorably  with  the  log  roads  of 
woodsmen  who  cut  with  steel  instead  of  enamel. 
In  most  old  beaver  colonies,  where  the  char- 
acter of  the  bottom  of  the  pond  permits  it,  there 
are  two  or  more  tunnels  or  subways  beneath  the 
floor  of  the  principal  pond.  The  main  tunnel  be- 
gins close  to  the  foundation  of  the  house,  and 
penetrates  the  earth  a  foot  or  more  beneath  the 
water  to  a  point  on  land  a  few  feet  beyond  the 
shore-line.  If  there  are  a  number  of  small  ponds 
in  a  colony  that  are  separated  by  ringers  of  land, 
it  is  not  uncommon  for  these  bits  of  land  to  be 
penetrated  by  a  thoroughfare  tunnel.  These  tun- 
nels through  the  separating  bits  of  land  enable 
the  beaver  to  go  from  one  pond  to  another  with: 
112 


out  exposing  themselves  to  dangers  on  land,  and 
also  offer  an  easy  means  of  intercommunication 
between  ponds  when  these  are  ice-covered.  Pond 
subways  also  afford  a  place  of  refuge  or  a  means 
of  escape  in  case  the  house  is  destroyed,  the  dam 
broken,  or  the  pond  drained,  or  in  case  the  pond 
should  freeze  to  the  bottom.  Commonly  these 
are  full  of  water,  but  some  are  empty.  On  the 
Missouri  and  other  rivers,  where  there  are  several 
feet  of  cut  banks  above  the  water,  beaver  com- 
monly dug  a  steeply  inclined  tunnel  from  the 
river's  edge  to  the  top  of  a  bank  a  few  feet  back. 
Most  of  this  tunnel  work  is  hidden  and  remains 
unknown.  A  striking  example  was  in  the  Spruce 
Tree  Colony,  elsewhere  described.  These  colon- 
ists, apparently  disgusted  by  having  their  ponds 
completely  filled  with  sediment  which  came  down 
as  the  result  of  a  cloudburst,  abandoned  the  old 
colony-site.  A  new  site  was  selected  on  a  mo- 
raine, only  a  short  distance  from  the  old  one. 
Here  in  the  sod  a  basin  was  scooped  out,  and 
a  dam  made  with  the  excavated  material.  The 
waters  from  a  spring  which  burst  forth  in  the 
moraine,  about  two  hundred  yards  up  the  slope 
113 


and  perhaps  one  hundred  feet  above,  trickled 
down  and  in  due  time  formed  a  pond.  The  fol- 
lowing year  this  pond  was  enlarged,  and  an- 
other one  built  upon  a  terrace  about  one  hun- 
dred feet  up  the  slope.  From  year  to  year  there 
were  enlargements  of  the  old  pond  and  the  build- 
ing of  new  pondlets,  until  there  were  seven  on 
the  terraces  of  this  moraine.  These,  together 
with  the  connecting  slides  and  canals,  required 
more  water  than  the  spring  supplied,  especially 
in  the  autumn  when  the  beaver  were  floating 
their  winter  supplies  from  pond  to  pond.  Within 
the  colony  area,  too,  were  many  water-filled  un- 
derground passages  or  subway  tunnels.  One  of 
these  penetrated  the  turf  beneath  the  willows  for 
more  than  two  hundred  feet. 

While  watching  the  autumnal  activities  of  this 
colony,  as  described  in  another  chapter,  I  broke 
through  the  surface  and  plunged  my  leg  into  an 
underground  channel  or  subway  that  was  half 
filled  with  water.  Taking  pains  to  trace  this 
stream  downward,  I  found  that  it  emptied  into 
the  uppermost  of  the  ponds  along  with  the  waters 
from  a  small  spring.  Then,  tracing  the  channel 
114 


upwards,  I  found  that,  about  one  hundred  and 
forty  feet  distant  from  the  uppermost  pond,  it 
connected  with  the  waters  of  the  brook  on  which 
the  old  colony  formerly  had  a  place.  This  tunnel 
over  most  of  its  course  was  about  two  feet  be- 
neath the  surface,  was  fourteen  inches  in  dia- 
meter, and  ran  beneath  the  roots  of  spruce  trees. 
The  water  which  the  tunnel  led  from  the  brook 
plainly  was  being  used  to  increase  the  supply 
needed  in  the  canals,  ponds,  and  pools  of  the 
Spruce  Tree  Colony.  The  intake  of  this  was  in 
a  tiny  pond  which  the  beaver  had  formed  by  a 
damlet  across  the  brook.  That  this  increased  sup- 
ply of  water  was  of  great  advantage  to  the  busy 
and  populous  Spruce  Tree  Colony,  there  can  be 
no  doubt.  Was  this  tunnel  planned  and  made  for 
this  especial  purpose,  or  was  the  increased  water- 
supply  of  the  colony  the  result  of  accident  by  the 
brook's  breaking  into  this  subway  tunnel  ? 

The  canals  which  beaver  dig,  the  slides  which 
they  use,  the  trails  which  they  clear  and  establish, 
conclusively  show  that  these  animals  appreciate 
the  importance  of  good  waterways  and  good  roads, 
—  in  other  words,  good  transportation  facilities. 


LILY  LAKE  beaver  house,  in  which  the  old 
spent  the  drouthy  winter,  was  a  large 
roughly  rounded  affair  that  measured  twenty-two 
feet  in  diameter.  It  rose  only  four  feet  above  the 
normal  water-line.  This  house  had  been  three 
times  altered  and  enlarged,  and  once  raised  in 
height.  Its  mud  walls  were  heavily  reinforced  with 
polelike  sticks,  which  were  placed  at  the  junctures 
of  the  enlargements.  The  one  large  room  was  more 
than  twelve  feet  in  diameter.  Near  the  centre 
stood  a  support  for  the  upper  part  of  the  house. 
This  support  was  about  one  and  a  half  by  two 
and  a  half  feet,  and  was  composed  for  the  most 
part  of  sticks.  But  few  houses  have  this  support ; 
commonly  the  room  is  vaulted.  The  room  itself 
averaged  two  and  a  half  feet  high.  It  had  four 
entrances. 

A  house  commonly  has  two  entrances,  but  it 
may  have  only  one  or  as  many  as  five.  Thus  the 
way  to  the  outer  world  from  the  inside  of  the 
119 


house  is  through  one  or  more  inclined  passage- 
ways or  tunnels.  The  upper  opening  of  these  en- 
trances is  in  the  floor  a  few  inches  above  the 
water-level,  and  the  lower  opening  in  the  bottom 
of  the  pond  under  about  three  feet  of  water. 
These  extend  at  an  angle  through  the  solid 
foundation  of  the  house,  are  about  one  foot  in 
diameter  and  four  to  fifteen  feet  long,  and  are 
full  of  water  almost  to  floor-level.  This  dark,  win- 
dowless  hut  has  no  other  entrance. 

Most  beaver  houses  stand  in  a  pond,  though 
a  number  are  built  on  the  shore  and  partly  in  the 
water,  and  still  others  on  the  bank  a  few  feet 
away  from  the  water.  The  external  appearance 
and  internal  construction  of  the  houses  are  in  a 
general  way  the  same,  regardless  of  the  situation 
or  size.  Most  beaver  houses  appear  conical. 
Measured  on  the  water-line,  they  are  commonly 
found  to  be  slightly  elliptical.  The  diameter  on 
the  water-line  is  from  five  to  thirty-five  feet,  and 
the  height  above  water  is  from  three  to  seven  feet. 

A  house  may  be  built  almost  entirely  of  sticks, 
or  of  a  few  sticks  with  a  larger  proportion  of  mud 
and  turf.  In  building,  a  small  opening  is  left, — 
120 


or  built  around  and  over,  —  which  is  afterwards 
enlarged  into  a  room. 

Houses  that  are  built  in  a  pond  usually  stand 
in  three  or  four  feet  of  water.  The  foundation  is 
laid  on  the  bottom  of  the  pond,  of  the  size  in- 
tended for  the  house,  and  built  up  a  solid  mass 
to  a  few  inches  above  water-level.  This  island- 
like  foundation  is  covered  with  a  crude  hemi- 
sphere or  dome-shaped  house,  the  central  portion 
of  the  foundation  forming  the  floor  of  the  low- 
vaulted  room  which  is  enclosed  by  the  thick 
house-walls.  In  building  the  house  the  beaver 
provide  a  temporary  support  for  the  combined 
roof  and  walls  by  piling  in  the  centre  of  the  floor 
a  two-foot  mound  of  mud.  Over  this  is  placed  a 
somewhat  flattened  tepee-  or  cone-shaped  frame 
of  sticks  and  small  poles.  These  stand  on  the 
outer  part  of  the  foundation  and  lean  inward 
with  upper  ends  meeting  against  and  above  the 
temporary  support.  The  beaver  then  cover  this 
framework  with  two  or  three  feet  of  mud,  brush, 
and  turf,  and  thus  make  the  walls  and  the  roof 
of  the  house.  When  the  outer  part  of  the  house 
is  completed,  they  dig  an  inclined  passageway, 

121 


3n 

from  the  bottom  of  the  pond  up  through  the 
foundation,  into  the  irregular  space  left  between 
the  supporting  pile  of  mud  and  the  walls.  And 
of  this  space  they  shape  a  room,  by  clawing  out 
the  temporary  support  and  gnawing  off  the  in- 
truding sticks.  This  represents  the  most  highly 
developed  type  of  beaver  house. 

In  most  houses  the  temporary  support  is  not 
used,  but  a  part  of  the  wall  is  carried  up  to  com- 
pletion, and  against  it  are  leaned  sticks,  which 
rest  upon  the  edge  of  the  remaining  foundation. 
A  finished  house  of  this  kind  has  a  slightly  ellip- 
tical outline.  However,  many  a  house  is  a  crude 
haphazard  pile  of  material  in  which  a  room  has 
been  burrowed. 

The  room  is  from  one  to  three  feet  high,  and 
from  three  to  twenty  feet  across.  The  room  is  a 
kind  of  a  burrow  and  is  without  either  door  or  win- 
dow. Half-buried  sticks  make  a  comparatively  dry 
floor,  despite  the  fact  that  it  is  only  a  few  inches 
above  water-level.  Beaver  sleep  on  the  floor, 
usually  with  tail  bent  along  the  side  after  the 
fashion  of  a  dozing  cat,  in  a  nest  of  shredded 
wood,  which  they  patiently  make  by  thinly  split- 

122 


ting  and  paring  pieces  of  wood.  Just  why  this 
kind  of  bedding  is  used  cannot  be  said,  but  prob- 
ably because  this  material  dries  more  quickly,  is 
more  comfortable  and  more  sanitary,  and  harbors 
fewer  parasites.  However,  a  few  beds  are  made 
of  grass,  leaves,  or  moss. 

But  little  earthy  matter  is  used  in  the  tip-top 
of  the  house,  where  the  minute  disjointed  air-holes 
between  the  interlaced  poles  give  the  room  scanty 
ventilation. 

Except  in  a  few  cases  where  house-walls  are 
overgrown  with  willows  or  grass,  the  erosive  ac- 
tion of  wind  and  water  rapidly  thins  and  weak- 
ens them.  Hence  the  house  must  receive  frequent 
repairs.  Each  autumn  it  is  plastered  or  piled  all 
over  with  sticks  or  mud.  The  mud  covering 
varies  in  thickness  from  two  to  six  inches.  The 
mud  for  this  purpose  is  usually  dredged  from  the 
bottom  of  the  pond  close  to  the  foundation  of  the 
house.  It  is  carried  up,  a  double  handful  at  a 
time,  the  beaver  waddling  on  his  hind  legs  as  he 
holds  it  with  his  fore  paws  against  his  breast.  A 
half-dozen  or  more  beaver  may  be  carrying  mud 
up  at  once.  The  covering  not  only  thickens  the 
123 


3n 

walls  and  increases  the  warmth  of  the  house,  but 
also  freezes  and  becomes  an  armor  of  stone  that 
is  impregnable  to  most  beaver  enemies.  The 
"  mudding  "  of  the  house  is  a  part  of  the  natural 
and  necessary  preparation  for  winter.  It  may  also 
be  a  special  means  of  protection  deliberately  car- 
ried out  by  the  beaver.  The  fact  that  an  occa- 
sional thick-walled  or  grass-covered  beaver  house 
was  not  thus  plastered  in  autumn  —  perhaps  be- 
cause it  did  not  need  it  —  has  led  a  few  people 
to  affirm  that  beaver  houses  are  not  mud-covered 
in  the  autumn.  Many  years  of  observation  show 
that  most  beaver  houses  do  receive  an  autumnal 
plastering,  and  the  few  that  do  not  have  this  at- 
tention usually  have  thick,  well-preserved  walls 
and  do  not  need  it. 

One  autumn  in  Montana,  of  twenty-seven 
beaver  houses  which  I  examined,  twenty-one  re- 
ceived mud  covering;  three  of  the  others  were 
thickly  overgrown  with  willows  and  two  were 
grass-grown.  Only  one  thin-walled  house  that 
needed  reinforcement  did  not  receive  it;  and  this 
one,  by  the  way,  was  broken  into  by  a  bear  before 
the  winter  had  got  fairly  under  way. 
124 


In  theautumn  of  1910 1  made  notes  concerning 
eighteen  houses.  These  I  watched  during  Octo- 
ber and  November.  Thirteen  were  plastered ;  a 
willow-grown  one  and  a  weed-grown  one,  both  of 
which  had  thick  walls,  were  not  plastered.  The 
remaining  three  were  not  greatly  in  need  of  ad- 
ditional thickness,  so  received  only  a  scanty  cov- 
ering of  sticks.  Two  of  these  were  broken  into  by 
some  animal  during  the  winter,  while  none  of  the 
others  were  disturbed. 

Beaver  frequently  show  good  judgment  in  that 
important  matter  of  selecting  a  site  for  the  house. 
Ice  and  sediment  are  two  factors  with  which  the 
beaver  must  constantly  contend.  In  the  pond  the 
house  is  commonly  placed  in  deep  water,  and 
apparently  where  the  depth  around  it  will  not  be 
rapidly  reduced  by  the  depositing  of  sediment. 
Keeping  the  house-entrance,  the  harvest-pile 
basin,  and  the  canals  from  filling  with  sediment 
is  one  of  the  difficult  problems  of  beaver  life. 

To  guard  against  the  rapid  encroachments  of 

the  deposits  of  sediment,  one  group  of  beaver, 

apparently  with  forethought,  built  a  dam  that 

formed  a  pond  from  the  waters  of  a  small  spring 

125 


which  carried  but  little  or  no  sediment.  I  have 
noticed  a  number  of  instances  in  which  a  pond 
was  made  on  a  small  streamlet  with  greater  labor 
than  it  would  have  required  to  form  a  pond  in  a 
near-by  brook.  As  there  were  a  number  of  other 
conditions  favorable  to  the  brook  situation  of  the 
house,  the  only  conclusion  I  could  reach  was  that 
these  selections  for  colony-sites  were  made  with 
the  intention  of  avoiding  the  ever-encroaching 
sediment,  —  for  in  some  beaver  ponds  this  sedi- 
ment is  deposited  annually  to  the  depth  of  sev- 
eral inches. 

Ice  is  one  of  the  troubles  of  beaver  existence. 
It  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  the  beaver  that 
he  should  have  his  house  so  situated  that  the  ice 
of  winter  does  not  close  the  entrance  to  it,  and 
also  that  the  deep  water  in  which  his  pile  of 
green  provisions  is  deposited  does  not  freeze 
solid  and  thus  exclude  him  from  the  food- 
supply.  The  ice  fills  the  pond  from  the  top  and 
compels  him  to  be  constantly  vigilant  to  save 
himself  from  its  encroachments.  Many  a  beaver 
home  has  been  built  alongside  a  spring,  around 
which  the  beaver  dredged  a  deep  hole  and  in  this 
126 


deposited  the  winter  food-supply.  The  constant 
flow  of  the  spring  water  prevented  thick  ice  from 
forming,  both  around  the  food-pile  and  between 
it  and  the  house-entrance. 

Large  numbers  of  beaver  do  not  possess  a 
house.  Beaver  who  live  without  a  dam  or  pond 
commonly  do  not  build  a  house,  but  are  content 
with  a  burrow  or  a  number  of  burrows  in  the 
banks  of  the  waters  which  they  inhabit.  In  the 
severe  struggle  to  live,  there  is  a  tendency  on 
the  part  of  the  beaver  to  avoid  the  building  of 
dams  and  houses,  as  these  reveal  their  presence 
and  put  the  aggressive  trapper  on  their  trail. 

Many  colonies  have  both  houses  and  burrows. 
Apparently  the  houses  were  used  in  the  winter- 
time, the  burrows  in  summer.  One  beaver  bur- 
row which  I  examined  was  about  one  foot  above 
the  level  of  the  pond  and  twelve  feet  distant 
from  it.  The  entrance  tunnels  were  sixteen  feet 
in  length,  and  began  a  trifle  more  than  three 
feet  under  water  near  the  edge  of  the  pond.  This 
burrow  measured  five  and  a  half  feet  long,  about 
half  as  wide,  and  seventeen  inches  high.  It  was 
immediately  beneath  the  outspreading  roots  of 
127 


an  Engelmann  spruce.  The  majority  of  beaver 
burrows  are  about  two  thirds  the  size  of  this  one. 

One  November  I  examined  more  than  a  score 
of  beaver  colonies.  There  was  no  snow,  but  re- 
cent cold  had  covered  the  pond  with  ice  and 
solidified  the  miry  surroundings.  Over  the  frozen 
surface  I  moved  easily  about  and  made  many 
measurements.  One  of  these  colonies  was  a  fairly 
typical  one.  The  colony  was  on  a  swift-running 
stream  that  came  down  from  the  snowy  heights, 
three  miles  distant.  The  top  of  Long's  Peak  and 
Mt.  Meeker  looked  down  upon  the  scene.  The 
altitude  of  this  colony  was  about  nine  thousand 
feet.  The  ponds  were  in  part  surrounded  by  semi- 
boggy  willow  flats,  with  here  and  there  a  high 
point  or  a  stretch  of  bank  that  was  covered  with 
aspens.  The  tops  of  a  few  huge  boulders  thrust 
up  through  the  water.  All  around  stood  guard  a 
tall,  dark  forest  of  lodge-pole  pines.  These  swept 
up  the  mountainside,  where  they  were  displaced 
by  a  growth  of  Engelmann  spruce  which  reached 
up  to  timber-line  on  the  heights  above. 

This  colony  had  a  number  of  ponds,  with  a 
few  short  canals  extending  outward  from  them. 
128 


A  conical  house  of  mud  and  slender  poles  stood 
in  the  larger  pond.  Above  this  pond  there  were 
half  a  dozen  pondlets,  the  uppermost  of  which 
was  formed  across  the  brook  by  a  semi-circular 
dam.  Over  the  outward  ends  of  this  dam  the 
water  flowed  and  was  caught  in  other  ponds; 
these  in  turn  overflowed,  the  water  traversing 
two  other  ponds,  one  below  the  other,  just  above 
the  main  one.  Below  the  large  pond  were  three 
smaller  ones  in  close  succession.  The  dam  of 
each  pond  backed  the  water  against  the  dam 
above  it. 

The  dam  of  the  main  pond  was  two  hundred 
and  thirty  feet  long.  Each  end  bent  upward  at  a 
sharp  angle  and  extended  a  number  of  yards  up- 
stream. This  dam  measured  five  feet  at  its  highest 
point,  but  along  the  greater  portion  was  only  a 
trifle  more  than  three  feet  high.  The  central  part 
was  overgrown  with  sedge  and  willows  and  ap- 
peared old ;  but  the  extreme  ends  appeared  new, 
and  probably  had  been  in  part  constructed  within 
a  few  weeks.  The  whole  dam  was  formed  of  earth 
and  slender  poles.  The  pond  formed  by  it  was 
one  hundred  and  eighty  feet  wide,  and  had  an 
129 


average  length  up  and  down  stream  of  one  hun- 
dred and  ten  feet.  The  average  depth  was  only 
two  feet 

Near  the  centre  of  this  large  pond  stood  the 
house,  a  trifle  nearer  to  the  dam  than  to  the 
upper  edge  of  the  pond.  I  measured  it  on  the 
water-  or  rather  the  ice-level.  It  took  twenty-six 
feet  of  rope  to  go  around  it.  The  top  of  the  house 
rose  exactly  five  feet  above  the  ice.  The  house 
was  built  of  a  mixture  of  sods  and  willow  sticks. 
The  ends  of  the  sticks  here  and  there  thrust  out 
through  the  three-or-four-inch  covering  of  mud 
which  the  house  had  recently  received.  Wonder- 
ing how  much  of  the  house  was  in  the  water  be- 
low the  level  of  the  ice,  I  thought  to  measure  the 
depth  by  thrusting  a  pole  through  the  ice  to  the 
bottom.  Holding  it  in  an  upright  position,  I  raised 
it  and  brought  it  down  with  all  my  strength. 
The  pole  went  through  the  ice  and  so  did  I. 
The  water  was  three  feet  deep.  This  depth  cov- 
ered only  a  small  area  around  the  house  and  was 
maintained  by  frequent  digging.  The  house  is 
often  plastered  with  this  dredged  material.  Alto- 
gether, then,  the  house  from  its  lowest  founda- 
130 


tion  on  the  bottom  of  the  pond  to  the  conical 
top  was  eight  feet  high.  The  foundation  of  this 
house  was  made  of  turf,  masses  of  grass  roots, 
and  a  small  percentage  of  mud  thickly  reinforced 
with  numerous  willow  sticks.  The  floor  was 
mostly  sticks.  As  the  entrance  tunnels  were  filled 
with  water  to  a  point  about  three  inches  below 
the  floor-level,  and  as  these  were  the  only  en- 
trances or  openings  into  the  house,  friend  or  foe 
could  enter  only  by  coming  up  through  one  or 
the  other  of  these  water-filled  tunnels  from  the 
bottom  of  the  pond. 

The  single,  circular,  dome-like  room  of  this 
house  was  four  and  a  half  feet  in  diameter  and 
about  two  feet  in  height.  Its  ceiling  was  roughly 
formed  by  a  confused  interlacing  of  sticks,  which 
stood  at  an  angle.  The  spaces  between  were  filled 
with  root-matted  mud.  The  walls  were  a  trifle 
more  than  two  feet  thick,  except  around  the  coni- 
cal top.  Here  was  a  small  space,  mostly  of  inter- 
lacing sticks,  the  thickness  of  which  was  but  one 
foot.  As  very  little  mud  had  been  used  in  this  part, 
there  were  thus  left  a  few  tiny  air-holes.  As  I  ap- 
proached, there  could  be  seen  arising  from  these 
131 


3n 


holes  the  steamy  and  scented  breath  of  the  beaver 
inhabitants  within.  Since  the  ventilation  of  beaver 
houses  is  exceedingly  poor,  and  as  this  animal 
probably  does  not  suffer  from  tuberculosis,  it  is 
possible  that  ventilation  is  assisted,  and  some 
of  the  impure  air  absorbed  by  the  water,  which 
rises  almost  to  the  floor  in  the  large  entrance- 
holes. 

The  early  trappers  from  time  to  time  noted 
extended  general  movements  or  emigrations 
among  beaver,  which  embraced  an  enormous  area. 
They,  as  with  human  emigrants,  probably  were 
seeking  a  safer,  better  home.  Some  of,  these  move- 
ments were  upstream,  others  down;  commonly 
away  from  civilization,  but  occasionally  toward 
it.  For  this  the  Missouri  River  was  the  great 
highway.  Limited  emigrations  of  this  kind  still 
occasionally  occur. 

The  annual  migration  is  a  different  affair.  This 
has  been  noted  for  some  hundred  and  fifty  years 
or  more,  and  probably  has  gone  on  for  centuries. 
This  peculiar  migration  might  be  called  a  migra- 
tory outing.  In  it  all  members  of  the  colony 
appear  to  have  taken  part,  leaving  home  in  June, 
132 


scattering  as  the  season  advanced.  Rambles  were 
made  up  and  down  stream,  other  beaver  settle- 
ments visited,  brief  stays  made  at  lakes,  adven- 
tures had  up  shallow  brooks,  and  daring  journeys 
made  on  portages.  The  country  was  explored. 
The  dangers  and  restrictions  imposed  during  the 
last  twenty-five  years  appear  in  some  localities 
to  have  checked  this  movement,  and  in  others  to 
have  stopped  it  completely.  But  in  most  colonies 
it  still  goes  on,  though  probably  not  usually  en- 
joyed by  mothers  and  children  except  to  a  limited 
extent. 

By  the  first  of  September  all  have  returned  to 
the  home,  or  joined  another  colony  or  assembled 
at  the  place  where  a  new  colony  is  to  be  founded. 
This  annual  vacation  probably  sustained  the  health 
of  the  colonists ;  they  got  away  from  the  parasites 
and  the  bad  air  of  their  houses.  The  outing  was 
taken  for  the  sheer  joy  of  it.  Incidentally,  it  brought 
beaver  into  new  territory  and  acquainted  them 
with  desirable  colony-sites  and  the  route  thereto, 
—  useful  information  in  case  the  colonists  were 
compelled  suddenly  to  abandon  the  old  home. 

It  is  natural  for  the  beaver  to  be  silent.   In 


silence  he  becomes  intimate  with  the  elements, 
and,  while  listening,  hears  and  understands  all 
moods  and  movements  that  concern  him.  He  is 
a  master  in  translating  sound.  It  wakens  or  warns, 
threatens  or  gladdens,  and  woos  him  back  to 
slumberland. 

On  the  wild  frontier  in  his  fortress  island  home 
in  safety  he  sits  and  sleeps  in  darkness.  He  can- 
not see  outside,  but  the  ever-changing  conditions 
of  the  surrounding  outer  world  are  revealed  to 
him  by  continuous  and  varying  sounds  that  pene- 
trate the  thick  windowless  walls  of  his  house.  He 
hears  the  cries  of  the  coyote  and  the  cougar,  the 
call  of  moose,  the  wild  and  fleeting  laugh  of  the 
kingfisher,  the  elemental  melody  of  the  ouzel,  and 
many  an  echo  faintly  from  afar.  He  hears  the 
soft  vibrations  from  the  muffled  feet  of  enemies ; 
and,  above  his  head,  the  raking  threat  of  claws 
upon  the  top  of  his  house.  Endlessly  the  water 
slides  and  gently  pours  over  the  dam,  and  softly 
ebbs  around  the  pond's  primeval  shores.  The 
earthquake  thunder  warns  of  storm,  the  floods 
roar;  then  through  day  and  night  the  cleared  and 
calmed  stream  goes  by.  The  wind  booms  among 


the  baffling  pines,  and  the  broken  and  leafless 
tree  falls  with  a  crash!  There  is  silence!  Along 
the  stream's  open  way  through  the  woods  num- 
berless breezes  whisper  and  pause  by  the  primi- 
tive house  in  the  water. 


$*&»»' a 


that  the  supply  of  aspens  near  the 
waters  of  the  Moraine  Colony  close  to  my 
home  was  almost  exhausted,  I  wondered  whether 
it  would  be  possible  for  the  beavers  to  procure 
a  sufficient  supply  downstream,  or  whether  they 
would  deem  it  best  to  abandon  this  old  colony 
and  migrate. 

Out  on  the  plains,  where  cottonwoods  were 
scarce,  the  beavers  first  cut  those  close  to  the 
colony,  then  harvested  those  upstream,  sometimes 
going  a  mile  for  them,  then  those  downstream ; 
but  rarely  were  the  latter  brought  more  than  a 
quarter  of  a  mile.  If  enemies  did  not  keep  down 
the  population  of  a  colony  so  situated,  it  was  only 
a  question  of  time  until  the  scarcity  of  the  food- 
supply  compelled  the  colonists  to  move  either  up 
or  down  stream  and  start  anew  in  a  place  where 
food  trees  could  be  obtained.  But  not  a  move 
until  necessity  drove  them  ! 

Not  far  from  my  home  in  the  mountains  the 
139 


inhabitants  of  two  old  beaver  colonies  endured 
hardships  in  order  to  remain  in  the  old  place. 
One  colony,  in  order  to  reach  a  grove  of  aspens, 
dug  a  canal  three  hundred  and  thirty-four  feet 
long,  which  had  an  average  depth  of  fifteen  inches 
and  a  width  of  twenty-six  inches.  It  ended  in  a 
grove  of  aspens,  which  were  in  due  time  cut  down 
and  floated  through  this  canal  into  the  pond, 
alongside  the  beaver  house.  The  other  colony 
endured  dangers  and  greater  hardships. 

During  the  summer  of  1900  an  extensive  forest 
fire  on  the  northerly  slope  of  Long's  Peak  wrought 
great  hardship  among  beaver  colonies  along  the 
streams  in  the  fire  district.  This  fire  destroyed 
all  the  aspens  and  some  of  the  willows.  In  order 
to  have  food  while  a  new  growth  of  aspens  was 
developing,  the  beavers  at  a  colony  on  the  Bier- 
stadt  Moraine  were  compelled  to  bring  their 
winter  supply  of  aspens  the  distance  of  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  from  an  isolated  grove  that  had  escaped 
the  fire.  This  stood  on  a  bench  of  the  moraine  at 
an  altitude  about  fifty  feet  greater  than  that  of 
the  beaver  pond.  Aspens  from  the  grove  were 
dragged  about  two  hundred  feet,  then  floated 
140 


across  a  small  water-hole,  and  from  this  taken  up 
the  steep  slope  of  a  ridge,  then  down  to  a  point 
about  one  hundred  feet  from  the  pond.  Between 
this  place  and  the  pond  was  a  deep  wreckage  of 
fire-killed  and  fallen  spruces.  To  cut  an  avenue 
through  these  was  too  great  a  task  for  the  beav- 
ers ;  so  with  much  labor  they  dug  a  canal  beneath 
the  wide  heap  of  wreckage,  and  through  this, 
beneath  the  gigantic  fallen  trees,  the  harvested 
aspens  were  dragged  and  piled  in  the  pond  for 
winter  food.  The  gathering  of  these  harvests, 
even  by  beavers,  must  have  been  almost  a  hope- 
less task.  In  going  thus  far  from  water  many  of 
the  harvesters  were  exposed  to  their  enemies,  and 
it  is  probable  that  many  beavers  lost  their  lives. 
Beavers  become  strongly  attached  to  localities 
and  especially  to  their  homes.  It  is  difficult  to 
drive  them  away  from  these,  but  the  exhaustion 
of  the  food-supply  sometimes  compels  an  entire 
colony  to  abandon  the  old  home-site,  migrate, 
and  found  a  new  colony.  Some  of  the  beavers' 
most  audacious  engineering  works  are  under- 
taken for  the  purpose  of  maintaining  the  food- 
supply  of  the  colony.  It  occasionally  happens 
141 


that  the  food  trees  near  the  water  by  an  old  colony 
become  scarce  through  excessive  cutting,  fires,  or 
tree  diseases.  In  cases  of  this  kind  the  colonists 
must  go  a  long  distance  for  their  supplies,  or  move. 
They  prefer  to  stay  at  the  old  place,  and  will  work 
for  weeks  and  brave  dangers  to  be  able  to  do 
this.  They  will  build  a  dam,  dig  a  new  canal, 
clear  a  difficult  right-of-way  to  a  grove  of  food 
saplings,  and  then  drag  the  harvest  a  long  dis- 
tance to  the  water;  and  now  and  then  do  all  these 
for  just  one  more  harvest,  one  more  year  in  the 
old  home. 

The  Moraine  Colony  had  lost  its  former  great- 
ness. Instead  of  the  several  ponds  and  the  eight 
houses  of  which  it  had  consisted  twenty  years  be- 
fore, only  one  house  and  a  single  pond  remained, 
The  house  was  in  the  deep  water  of  the  pond, 
about  twenty  feet  above  the  dam.  A  vigorous 
brook  from  Chasm  Lake,  three  thousand  feet 
above,  ran  through  the  pond  and  poured  over  the 
dam  near  the  house.  The  colony  was  on  a  delta 
tongue  of  a  moraine.  Here  it  had  been  estab- 
lished for  generations.  It  was  embowered  in  a 
young  pine  forest  and  had  ragged  areas  of  willows 
142 


(Engineering 

around  it.  A  fire  and  excessive  cutting  by  beav- 
ers had  left  but  few  aspens  near  the  water.  These 
could  furnish  food  for  no  more  than  two  autumn 
harvests,  and  perhaps  for  only  one.  Other  colon- 
ies had  met  similar  conditions.  How  would  the 
Moraine  Colony  handle  theirs? 

The  Moraine  colonists  mastered  the  situation 
in  their  place  with  the  most  audacious  piece  of 
work  I  have  ever  known  beavers  to  plan  and  ac- 
complish. About  one  hundred  and  thirty  feet 
south  of  the  old  pond  was  a  grove  of  aspens.  Be- 
tween these  and  the  pond  was  a  small  bouldery 
flat  that  had  a  scattering  of  dead  and  standing 
spruces  and  young  lodge-pole  pines.  A  number 
of  fallen  spruces  lay  broken  among  the  partly  ex- 
posed boulders  of  the  flat.  One  day  I  was  aston- 
ished to  find  that  a  dam  was  being  built  across 
this  flat,  and  still  more  astonished  to  discover 
that  this  dam  was  being  made  of  heavy  sections 
of  fire-killed  trees.  Under  necessity  only  will 
beavers  gnaw  dead  wood,  and  then  only  to  a 
limited  extent.  Such  had  been  my  observations 
for  years;  but  here  they  were  cutting  dead,  fire- 
hardened  logs  in  a  wholesale  manner.  Why  were 
143 


they  cutting  this  dead  wood,  and  why  a  dam  across 
a  rocky  flat, — a  place  across  which  water  never 
flowed?  A  dam  of  dead  timber  across  a  dry  flat 
appeared  to  be  a  marked  combination  of  animal 
stupidity, — but  the  beavers  knew  what  they  were 
doing.  After  watching  their  activities  and  the 
progress  of  the  dam  daily  for  a  month,  I  realized 
that  they  were  doing  development  work,  with  the 
intention  of  procuring  a  food-supply.  They  com- 
pleted  a  dam  of  dead  timber. 

At  least  two  accidents  happened  to  the  build- 
ers of  this  dead-wood  dam.  One  of  these  occurred 
when  a  tree  which  the  beavers  had  gnawed  off 
pinned  the  beaver  that  had  cut  it  between  its  end 
and  another  tree  immediately  behind  the  animal. 
The  other  accident  was  caused  by  a  tree  falling 
in  an  unexpected  direction.  This  tree  was  lean- 
ing against  a  fallen  one  that  was  held  several  feet 
above  the  earth  by  a  boulder.  When  cut  off,  in- 
stead of  falling  directly  to  the  earth  it  slid  along- 
side the  log  against  which  it  had  been  leaning 
and  was  shunted  off  to  one  side,  falling  upon  and 
instantly  killing  two  of  the  logging  beavers. 

The  dam,  when  completed,  was  eighty-five  feet 
144 


long.  It  was  about  fifty  feet  below  the  main  pond 
and  sixty  feet  distant  from  the  south  side  of  it. 
Fifty  feet  of  the  new  dam  ran  north  and  south, 
parallel  to  the  old  one;  then,  forming  a  right 
angle,  it  extended  thirty-five  feet  toward  the  east. 
It  averaged  three  feet  in  height,  being  made  al- 
most entirely  of  large  chunks,  dead-tree  cuttings 
from  six  to  fifteen  inches  in  diameter  and  from 
two  to  twelve  feet  long.  It  appeared  a  crude 
windrow  of  dead-timber  wreckage. 

The  day  it  was  completed  the  builders  shifted 
the  scene  of  activity  to  the  brook,  a  short  dis- 
tance below  the  point  where  it  emerged  from  the 
main  pond.  Here  they  placed  a  small  dam  across 
it  and  commenced  work  on  a  canal,  through 
which  they  endeavored  to  lead  a  part  of  the  waters 
of  the  brook  into  the  reservoir  which  their  dead- 
wood  dam  had  formed. 

There  was  a  swell  or  slight  rise  in  the  earth  of 
about  eighteen  inches  between  the  reservoir  and 
the  head  of  the  canal  that  was  to  carry  water 
into  it.  The  swell,  I  suppose,  was  not  considered 
by  the  beavers.  At  any  rate,  they  completed 
about  half  the  length  of  the  canal,  then  appar- 
145 


ently  discovered  that  water  would  not  flow 
through  it  in  the  direction  desired.  Other  canal- 
builders  have  made  similar  errors.  The  beavers 
were  almost  human.  This  part  of  the  canal  was 
abandoned  and  a  new  start  made.  The  beavers 
now  apparently  tried  to  overcome  the  swell  in 
the  earth  by  an  artificial  work. 

A  pondlet  was  formed  immediately  below  the 
old  pond  by  building  a  sixty-foot  bow-like  dam, 
the  ends  of  which  were  attached  to  the  old  dam. 
The  brook  pouring  from  the  old  pond  quickly 
filled  this  new  narrow,  sixty-foot-long  reservoir. 
The  outlet  of  this  was  made  over  the  bow  dam  at 
the  point  nearest  to  the  waiting  reservoir  of  the 
dead-wood  dam.  The  water,  where  it  poured 
over  the  outlet  of  the  bow  dam,  failed  to  flow 
toward  the  waiting  reservoir,  but  was  shed  off  to 
one  side  by  the  earth-swell  before  it.  Instead  of 
flowing  southward,  it  flowed  eastward.  The  beav- 
ers remedied  this  and  directed  the  flow  by  build- 
ing a  wing  dam,  which  extended  southward  from 
the  bow  dam  at  the  point  where  the  water  over- 
poured.  This  earthwork  was  about  fifteen  feet 
long,  four  feet  wide,  and  two  high.  Along  the 
146 


upper  side  of  this  the  water  flowed,  and  from  its 
end  a  canal  was  dug  to  the  reservoir. 

About  half  of  the  brook  was  diverted,  and  this 
amount  of  water  covered  the  flat  and  formed  a  pond 
to  the  height  of  the  dead-wood  dam  in  less  than 
three  days.  Most  of  the  leaky  openings  in  this 
dam  early  became  clogged  with  leaves,  trash,  and 
sediment  that  were  carried  in  by  the  water,  but 
here  and  there  were  large  openings  which  the 
beavers  mudded  themselves.  The  new  pond  was 
a  little  more  than  one  hundred  feet  long  and 
from  forty  to  fifty  feet  wide.  Its  southerly  shore 
flooded  into  the  edge  of  the  aspen  grove  which 
the  beavers  were  planning  to  harvest. 

The  canal  was  from  four  to  five  feet  wide  and 
from  eight  to  twenty  inches  deep.  The  actual  dis- 
tance that  lay  between  the  brook  and  the  shore 
of  the  new  pond  was  ninety  feet.  Though  the 
diverting  of  the  water  was  a  task,  it  required  less 
labor  than  the  building  of  the  dam. 

With  dead  timber  and  the  canal,  the  beavers 
had  labored  two  seasons  for  the  purpose  of  get- 
ting more  supplies  without  abandoning  the  colony. 
If  in  building  the  dam  they  had  used  the  green, 
147 


3n 

easily  cut  aspens,  they  would  have  greatly  reduced 
the  available  food-supply.  It  would  have  required 
most  of  these  aspens  to  build  the  dam.  The  only 
conclusion  I  can  reach  is  that  the  beavers  not 
only  had  the  forethought  to  begin  work  to  obtain 
a  food-supply  that  would  be  needed  two  years 
after,  but  also,  at  the  expense  of  much  labor, 
actually  saved  the  scanty  near-by  food-supply  of 
aspens  by  making  their  dam  with  the  hard,  fire- 
killed  trees. 

A  large  harvest  of  aspen  and  willow  was 
gathered  for  winter.  Daily  visits  to  the  scene  of 
the  harvest  enabled  me  to  understand  many 
of  the  methods  and  much  of  the  work  that  other- 
wise would  have  gone  on  unknown  to  me.  Early 
in  the  harvest  an  aspen  cluster  far  downstream 
was  cut.  Every  tree  in  this  cluster  and  every 
near-by  aspen  was  felled,  dragged  to  the  brook, 
and  in  this, 'with  wrestling,  pushing,  and  pulling, 
taken  upstream  through  shallow  water, — for  most 
mountain  streams  are  low  during  the  autumn. 
In  the  midst  of  this  work  the  entrance  or  inlet 
of  the  canal  was  blocked  and  the  bow  dam  was 
cut.  The  water  in  the  brook  was  almost  doubled 
148 


(Brngtmering 

in  volume  by  the  closing  of  the  canal,  thereby 
making  the  transportation  of  aspens  upstream 
less  laborious. 

When  the  downstream  aspens  at  last  reposed 
in  a  pile  beside  the  house,  harvesting  was  briskly 
begun  in  the  aspens  along  the  shore  of  the  new 
pond.  Then  came  another  surprise.  The  bow 
dam  was  repaired,  and  the  canal  not  only  opened, 
but  enlarged  so  that  almost  all  the  water  in  the 
brook  was  diverted  into  the  canal,  through  which 
it  flowed  into  the  new  pond. 

The  aspens  cut  on  the  shore  of  the  new  pond 
were  floated  across  it,  then  dragged  up  the  canal 
into  the  old  pond.  Evidently  the  beavers  not  only 
had  again  turned  the  water  into  the  canal  that 
they  might  use  it  in  transportation,  but  also  had 
increased  the  original  volume  of  water  simply  to 
make  this  transportation  of  the  aspens  as  easy  as 
possible. 

Their  new  works  enabled  the  colonists  to  pro- 
cure nearly  five  hundred  aspens  for  the  winter. 
All  these  were  taken  up  the  new  canal,  dragged 
over  the  bow  and  the  main  dams,  and  piled  in 
the  water  by  the  house.  In  addition  to  these,  the 
149 


aspens  brought  from  downstream  made  the  total 
of  the  harvest  seven  hundred  and  thirty-two  trees; 
and  with  these  went  several  hundred  small  willows. 
Altogether  these  made  a  large  green  brush-pile 
that  measured  more  than  a  hundred  feet  in  cir- 
cumference, and  after  it  settled  averaged  four  feet 
in  depth.  This  was  the  food-supply  for  the  on- 
coming winter.  The  upper  surface  of  this  stood 
about  one  foot  above  the  surface  of  the  water. 

Five  years  after  the  completion  of  this  dead- 
wood  dam  it  was  so  overgrown  with  willows  and 
grass  that  the  original  material  —  the  dead  tree- 
trunks  that  formed  the  major  portion  of  it — was 
completely  covered  over.  The  new  pond  was  used 
but  one  season.  All  the  aspens  that  were  made 
available  by  the  dam  of  the  pond  were  cut  in  one 
harvest.  The  place  is  now  abandoned,  old  ponds 
and  new. 


(guineb  CoCony 


x  years  ago,  while  studying  glacia- 
tion  on  the  slope  of  Long's  Peak,  I  came 
upon  a  cluster  of  eight  beaver  houses.  These 
crude  conical  mud  huts  were  in  a  forest  pond  far 
up  on  the  mountainside.  In  this  colony  of  our 
first  engineers  were  so  many  things  of  interest 
that  the  fascinating  study  of  the  dead  Ice  King's 
ruins  and  records  was  indefinitely  given  up  in 
order  to  observe  Citizen  Beaver's  works  and  ways. 

A  pile  of  granite  boulders  on  the  edge  of  the 
pond  stood  several  feet  above  the  water-level,  and 
from  the  top  of  these  the  entire  colony  and  its 
operations  could  be  seen.  On  these  I  spent  days 
observing  and  enjoying  the  autumnal  activities 
of  Beaverdom. 

It  was  the  busiest  time  of  the  year  for  these 
industrious  folk.  General  and  extensive  prepara- 
tions were  now  being  made  for  the  long  winter 
amid  the  mountain  snows.  A  harvest  of  scores 
of  trees  was  being  gathered  and  work  on  a  new 


3n 

house  was  in  progress,  while  the  old  houses  were 
receiving  repairs.  It  was  a  serene  autumn  day 
when  I  came  into  the  picturesque  village  of  these 
primitive  people.  The  aspens  were  golden,  the 
willows  rusty,  the  grass  tanned,  and  the  pines 
were  purring  in  the  easy  air. 

The  colony-site  was  in'  a  small  basin  amid 
morainal  debris  at  an  altitude  of  nine  thousand 
feet  above  the  sea-level.  I  at  once  christened  it 
the  Moraine  Colony.  The  scene  was  utterly  wild. 
Peaks  of  crags  and  snow  rose  steep  and  high 
above  all ;  all  around  crowded  a  dense  evergreen 
forest  of  pine  and  spruce.  A  few  small  swamps 
reposed  in  this  forest,  while  here  and  there  in  it 
bristled  several  gigantic  windrows  of  boulders. 
A  ragged  belt  of  aspens  surrounded  the  several 
ponds  and  separated  the  pines  and  spruces  from 
the  fringe  of  water-loving  willows  along  the  shores. 
There  were  three  large  ponds  in  succession  and 
below  these  a  number  of  smaller  ones.  The  dams 
that  formed  the  large  ponds  were  willow-grown, 
earthy  structures  about  four  feet  in  height,  and 
all  sagged  downstream.  The  houses  were  grouped 
in  the  middle  pond,  the  largest  one,  the  dam  of 


Cofonj) 


which  was  more  than  three  hundred  feet  long. 
Three  of  these  lake  dwellings  stood  near  the 
upper  margin,  close  to  where  the  brook  poured 
in.  The  other  five  were  clustered  by  the  outlet, 
just  below  which  a  small  willow-grown,  boulder- 
dotted  island  lay  between  the  divided  waters  of 
the  stream. 

A  number  of  beavers  were  busy  gnawing  down 
aspens,  while  others  cut  the  felled  ones  into  sec- 
tions, pushed  and  rolled  the  sections  into  the 
water,  and  then  floated  them  to  the  harvest  piles, 
one  of  which  was  being  made  beside  each  house. 
Some  were  quietly  at  work  spreading  a  coat  of 
mud  on  the  outside  of  each  house.  This  would 
freeze  and  defy  the  tooth  and  claw  of  the  hun- 
griest or  the  strongest  predaceous  enemy.  Four 
beavers  were  leisurely  lengthening  and  repairing 
a  dam.  A  few  worked  singly,  but  most  of  them 
were  in  groups.  All  worked  quietly  and  with  ap- 
parent deliberation,  but  all  were  in  motion,  so 
that  it  was  a  busy  scene.  "  To  work  like  a  beaver ! " 
What  a  stirring  exhibition  of  beaver  industry  and 
forethought  I  viewed  from  my  boulder-pile  ! 

At  times  upward  of  forty  of  them   were  in 


sight.  Though  there  was  a  general  cooperation, 
yet  each  one  appeared  to  do  his  part  without 
orders  or  direction.  Time  and  again  a  group  of 
workers  completed  a  task,  and  without  pause  sil- 
ently moved  off,  and  began  another.  Everything 
appeared  to  go  on  mechanically.  It  produced  a 
strange  feeling  to  see  so  many  workers  doing  so 
many  kinds  of  work  effectively  and  automatically. 
Again  and  again  I  listened  for  the  superintend- 
ent's voice  ;  constantly  I  watched  to  see  the  over- 
seer move  among  them;  but  I  listened  and  watched 
in  vain.  Yet  I  feel  that  some  of  the  patriarchal 
fellows  must  have  carried  a  general  plan  of  the 
work,  and  that  during  its  progress  orders  and  di- 
rections that  I  could  not  comprehend  were  given 
from  time  to  time. 

The  work  was  at  its  height  a  little  before  mid- 
day. Nowadays  it  is  rare  for  a  beaver  to  work  in 
daylight.  Men  and  guns  have  prevented  daylight 
workers  from  leaving  descendants.  These  not  only 
worked  but  played  by  day.  One  morning  for 
more  than  an  hour  there  was  a  general  frolic,  in 
which  the  entire  population  appeared  to  take 
part.  They  raced,  dived,  crowded  in  general 
156 


Q-totnei 

mix-ups,  whacked  the  water  with  their  tails, 
wrestled,  and  dived  again.  There  were  two  or 
three  play-centres,  but  the  play  went  on  without 
intermission,  and  as  their  position  constantly 
changed,  the  merrymakers  splashed  water  all 
over  the  main  pond  before  they  calmed  down  and 
in  silence  returned  to  work.  I  gave  most  atten- 
tion to  the  harvesters,  who  felled  the  aspens  and 
moved  them,  bodily  or  in  sections,  by  land  and 
water  to  the  harvest  piles.  One  tree  on  the  shore 
of  the  pond,  which  was  felled  into  the  water,  was 
eight  inches  in  diameter  and  fifteen  feet  high. 
Without  having  even  a  limb  cut  off,  it  was  floated 
to  the  nearest  harvest  pile.  Another,  about  the 
same  size,  which  was  procured  some  fifty  feet 
from  the  water,  was  cut  into  four  sections  and 
its  branches  removed;  then  a  single  beaver  would 
take  a  branch  in  his  teeth,  drag  it  to  the  water, 
and  swim  with  it  to  a  harvest  pile.  But  four 
beavers  united  to  transport  the  largest  section  to 
the  water.  They  pushed  with  fore  paws,  with 
breasts,  and  with  hips.  Plainly  it  was  too  heavy 
for  them.  They  paused.  "  Now  they  will  go  for 
help,"  I  said  to  myself, "  and  I  shall  find  out  who 
157 


the  boss  is."  But  to  my  astonishment  one  of  them 
began  to  gnaw  the  piece  in  two,  and  two  more 
began  to  clear  a  narrow  way  to  the  water,  while 
the  fourth  set  himself  to  cutting  down  another 
aspen.  Good  roads  and  open  waterways  are  the 
rule,  and  perhaps  the  necessary  rule,  of  beaver 
colonies. 

I  became  deeply  interested  in  this  colony, 
which  was  situated  within  two  miles  of  my  cabin, 
and  its  nearness  enabled  me  to  be  a  frequent 
visitor  and  to  follow  closely  its  fortunes  and  mis- 
fortunes. About  the  hut-filled  pond  I  lingered 
when  it  was  covered  with  winter's  white,  when 
fringed  with  the  gentian's  blue,  and  while  decked 
with  the  pond-lily's  yellow  glory. 

Fire  ruined  it  during  an  autumn  of  drouth.  One 
morning,  while  watching  from  the  boulder-pile,  I 
noticed  an  occasional  flake  of  ash  dropping  into 
the  pond.  Soon  smoke  scented  the  air,  then  came 
the  awful  and  subdued  roar  of  a  forest  fire.  I  fled, 
and  from  above  the  timber-line  watched  the  storm- 
cloud  of  black  smoke  sweep  furiously  forward, 
bursting  and  closing  to  the  terrible  leaps  of  red 
and  tattered  flames.  Before  noon  several  thou- 
158 


(Ruinefc  Cofong 

sand  acres  of  forest  were  dead,  all  leaves  and 
twigs  were  in  ashes,  all  tree-trunks  blistered  and 
blackened. 

The  Moraine  Colony  was  closely  embowered 
in  a  pitchy  forest.  For  a  time  the  houses  in  the 
water  must  have  been  wrapped  in  flames  of 
smelter  heat.  Could  these  mud  houses  stand  this  ? 
The  beavers  themselves  I  knew  would  escape  by 
sinking  under  the  water.  Next  morning  I  went 
through  the  hot,  smoky  area  and  found  every 
house  cracked  and  crumbling ;  not  one  was  in- 
habitable. Most  serious  of  all  was  the  total  loss 
of  the  uncut  food-supply,  when  harvesting  for 
winter  had  only  begun. 

Would  these  energetic  people  starve  at  home 
or  would  they  try  to  find  refuge  in  some  other 
colony  ?  Would  they  endeavor  to  find  a  grove 
that  the  fire  had  missed  and  there  start  anew  ? 
The  intense  heat  had  consumed  almost  every 
fibrous  thing  above  the  surface.  The  piles  of 
garnered  green  aspen  were  charred  to  the  water- 
line  ;  all  that  remained  of  willow  thickets  and 
aspen  groves  were  thousands  of  blackened  pickets 
and  points,  acres  of  coarse  charcoal  stubble.  It 


was  a  dreary,  starving  outlook  for  my  furred 
friends. 

I  left  the  scene  to  explore  the  entire  burned 
area.  After  wandering  for  hours  amid  ashes  and 
charcoal,  seeing  here  and  there  the  seared  car- 
cass of  a  deer  or  some  othef  wild  animal,  I  came 
upon  a  beaver  colony  that  had  escaped  the  fire. 
It  was  in  the  midst  of  several  acres  of  swampy 
ground  that  was  covered  with  fire-resisting  wil- 
lows and  aspens.  The  surrounding  pine  forest 
was  not  dense,  and  the  heat  it  produced  in  burn- 
ing did  no  damage  to  the  scattered  beaver  houses. 

From  the  top  of  a  granite  crag  I  surveyed  the 
green  scene  of  life  and  the  surrounding  sweep  of 
desolation.  Here  and  there  a  sodden  log  smould- 
ered in  the  ashen  distance  and  supported  a  tower 
of  smoke  in  the  still  air.  A  few  miles  to  the  east, 
among  the  scattered  trees  of  a  rocky  summit, 
the  fire  was  burning  itself  out;  to  the  west  the 
sun  was  sinking  behind  crags  and  snow ;  near 
by,  on  a  blackened  limb,  a  south-bound  robin 
chattered  volubly  but  hopelessly. 

While  I  was  listening,  thinking,  and  watching, 
a  mountain  lion  appeared  and  leaped  lightly  upon 
160 


(Kutnefc  Cofong 

a  block  of  granite.  He  was  on  my  right,  about  one 
hundred  feet  away  and  about  an  equal  distance 
from  the  shore  of  the  nearest  pond.  He  was  in- 
terested in  the  approach  of  something.  With  a 
nervous  switching  of  his  tail  he  peered  eagerly 
forward  over  the  crown  of  the  ridge  just  before 
him,  and  then  crouched  tensely  and  expectantly 
upon  his  rock. 

A  pine  tree  that  had  escaped  the  fire  screened 
the  place  toward  which  the  lion  looked  and  where 
something  evidently  was  approaching.  While  I 
was  trying  to  discover  what  it  could  be,  a  coyote 
trotted  into  view.  Without  catching  sight  of  the 
near-by  lion,  he  suddenly  stopped  and  fixed  his 
gaze  upon  the  point  that  so  interested  the  crouch- 
ing beast.  The  mystery  was  solved  when  thirty 
or  forty  beavers  came  hurrying  into  view.  They 
had  come  from  the  ruined  Moraine  Colony. 

I  thought  to  myself  that  the  coyote,  stuffed  as 
he  must  be  with  the  seared  flesh  of  fire-roasted 
victims,  would  not  attack  them ;  but  a  lion  wants 
a  fresh  kill  for  every  meal,  and  so  I  watched  the 
movements  of  the  latter.  He  adjusted  his  feet 
a  trifle  and  made  ready  to  spring.  The  beavers 
161 


were  getting  close;  but  just  as  I  was  about  to 
shout  to  frighten  him,  the  coyote  leaped  among 
them  and  began  killing. 

In  the  excitement  of  getting  off  the  crag  I 
narrowly  escaped  breaking  my  neck.  Once  on 
the  ground,  I  ran  for  the  coyote,  shouting  wildly 
to  frighten  him  off ;  but  he  was  so  intent  upon 
killing  that  a  violent  kick  in  the  ribs  first  made 
him  aware  of  my  presence.  In  anger  and  excite- 
ment he  leaped  at  me  with  ugly  teeth  as  he  fled. 
The  lion  had  disappeared,  and  by  this  time  the 
beavers  in  the  front  ranks  were  jumping  into  the 
pond,  while  the  others  were  awkwardly  speeding 
down  the  slope.  The  coyote  had  killed  three.  If 
beavers  have  a  language,  surely  that  night  the 
refugees  related  to  their  hospitable  neighbors 
some  thrilling  experiences. 

The  next  morning  I  returned  to  the  Moraine 
Colony  over  the  route  followed  by  the  refugees. 
Leaving  their  fire-ruined  homes,  they  had  fol- 
lowed the  stream  that  issued  from  their  ponds. 
In  places  the  channel  was  so  clogged  with  fire 
wreckage  that  they  had  followed  alongside  the 
water  rather  than  in  it,  as  is  their  wont  At  one 
162 


inrt  Cofonp 

place  they  had  hurriedly  taken  refuge  in  the 
stream.  Coyote  tracks  in  the  scattered  ashes  ex- 
plained this.  But  after  going  a  short  distance 
they  had  climbed  from  the  water  and  again 
traveled  the  ashy  earth. 

Beavers  commonly  follow  water  routes,  but  in 
times  of  emergency  or  in  moments  of  audacity 
they  will  journey  overland.  To  have  followed 
this  stream  down  to  its  first  tributary,  then  up 
this  to  where  the  colony  in  which  they  found 
refuge  was  situated,  would  have  required  four 
miles  of  travel.  Overland  it  was  less  than  a  mile. 
After  following  the  stream  for  some  distance,  at 
just  the  right  place  they  turned  off,  left  the 
stream,  and  dared  the  overland  dangers.  How 
did  they  know  the  situation  of  the  colony  in  the 
willows,  or  that  it  had  escaped  fire,  and  how 
could  they  have  known  the  shortest,  best  way 
to  it? 

The  morning  after  the  arrival  of  the  refugees, 
work  was  begun  on  two  new  houses  and  a  dam, 
which  was  about  sixty  feet  in  length  and  built 
across  a  grassy  open.  Green  cuttings  of  willow, 
aspen,  and  alder  were  used  in  its  construction. 
163 


3n 

Not  a  single  stone  or  handful  of  mud  was  used. 
When  completed  it  appeared  like  a  windrow  of 
freshly  raked  shrubs.  It  was  almost  straight,  but 
sagged  a  trifle  downstream.  Though  the  water 
filtered  freely  through,  it  flooded  the  flat  above. 
As  the  two  new  houses  could  not  shelter  all  the 
refugees,  it  is  probable  that  some  of  them  were 
sheltered  in  bank  tunnels,  while  room  for  others 
may  have  been  found  in  the  old  houses. 

That  winter  the  colony  was  raided  by  some 
trappers ;  more  than  one  hundred  pelts  were  se- 
cured, and  the  colony  was  left  in  ruins  and  almost 
depopulated. 

The  Moraine  Colony  site  was  deserted  for  a 
long  time.  Eight  years  after  the  fire  I  returned 
to  examine  it.  The  willow  growth  about  the 
ruins  was  almost  as  thrifty  as  when  the  fire  came. 
A  growth  of  aspen  taller  than  one's  head  clung  to 
the  old  shore-lines,  while  a  close  seedling  growth 
of  lodge-pole  pine  throve  in  the  ashes  of  the  old 
forest.  One  low  mound,  merry  with  blooming 
columbine,  was  the  only  house  ruin  to  be  seen. 

The  ponds  were  empty  and  every  dam  was 
broken.  The  stream,  in  rushing  unobstructed 
164 


through  the  ruins,  had  eroded  deeply.  This  ero- 
sion revealed  the  records  of  ages,  and  showed 
that  the  old  main  dam  had  been  built  on  the  top 
of  an  older  dam  and  a  sediment-filled  pond.  The 
second  dam  was  on  top  of  an  older  one  still.  In 
the  sediment  of  the  oldest  —  the  bottom  pond — 
I  found  a  spearhead,  two  charred  logs,  and  the 
skull  of  a  buffalo.  Colonies  of  beaver,  as  well  as 
those  of  men,  are  often  found  upon  sites  that 
have  a  tragic  history.  Beavers,  with  Omar,  might 
say,— 

"  When  you  and  I  behind  the  veil  are  past, 
Oh  but  the  long  long  while  the  world  shall  last." 

The  next  summer,  1893,  tne  Moraine  site  was 
resettled.  During  the  first  season  the  colonists 
spent  their  time  repairing  dams  and  were  con- 
tent to  live  in  holes.  In  autumn  they  gathered  no 
harvest,  and  no  trace  of  them  could  be  found 
after  the  snow;  so  it  is  likely  that  they  had  re- 
turned to  winter  in  the  colony  whence  they  had 
come.  But  early  in  the  next  spring  there  were 
reinforced  numbers  of  them  at  work  establishing 
a  permanent  settlement.  Three  dams  were  re- 
paired, and  in  the  autumn  many  of  the  golden 
165 


3n 

leaves  that  fell  found  lodgment  in  the  fresh  plaster 
of  two  new  houses. 

In  the  new  Moraine  Colony  one  of  the  houses 
was  torn  to  pieces  by  some  animal,  probably  a 
bear.  This  was  before  Thanksgiving.  About  mid- 
winter a  prospector  left  his  tunnel  a  few  miles 
away,  came  to  the  colony  and  dynamited  a  house, 
and  "got  seven  of  them."  Next  year  two  houses 
were  built  on  the  ruins  of  the  two  just  fallen. 
That  year's  harvest-home  was  broken  by  deadly 
attacks  of  enemies.  In  gathering  the  harvest  the 
beavers  showed  a  preference  for  some  aspens  that 
were  growing  in  a  moist  place  about  one  hundred 
feet  from  the  water.  Whether  it  was  the  size  of 
these  or  their  peculiar  flavor  that  determined 
their  election  in  preference  to  nearer  ones,  I  could 
not  determine.  One  day,  while  several  beavers 
were  cutting  here,  they  were  surprised  by  a  moun- 
tain lion  which  leaped  upon  and  killed  one  of  the 
harvesters.  The  next  day  the  lion  surprised  and 
killed  another.  Two  or  three  days  later  a  coyote 
killed  one  on  the  same  blood-stained  spot,  and 
then  overtook  and  killed  two  others  as  they  fled 
for  the  water.  I  could  not  see  these  deadly  attacks 
166 


from  the  boulder-pile,  but  in  each  case  the  sight 
of  flying  beavers  sent  me  rushing  upon  the  scene, 
where  I  beheld  the  cause  of  their  desperate  retreat. 
But  despite  dangers  they  persisted  until  the  last 
of  these  aspens  was  harvested.  During  the  winter 
the  bark  was  eaten  from  these,  and  the  next  season 
their  clean  wood  was  used  in  the  walls  of  a  new 
house. 

One  autumn  I  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  some 
immigrants  pass  me  en  route  for  a  new  home  in 
the  Moraine  Colony.  Of  course  they  may  have 
been  only  visitors,  or  have  come  temporarily  to 
assist  in  the  harvesting;  but  I  like  to  think  of 
them  as  immigrants,  and  a  number  of  things  testi- 
fied that  immigrants  they  were.  One  evening  I 
had  been  lying  on  a  boulder  by  the  stream  below 
the  colony,  waiting  for  a  gift  from  the  gods.  It 
came.  Out  of  the  water  within  ten  feet  of  me 
scrambled  the  most  patriarchal,  as  well  as  the 
largest,  beaver  that  I  have  ever  seen.  I  wanted 
to  take  off  my  hat  to  him,  I  wanted  to  ask  him  to 
tell  me  the  story  of  his  life,  but  from  long  habit 
I  simply  lay  still  and  watched  and  thought  in 
silence.  He  was  making  a  portage  round  a  cas- 
167 


3n  (geafcer  TUorfb 

cade.  As  he  scrambled  up  over  the  rocks,  I  noticed 
that  he  had  but  two  fingers  on  his  right  hand. 
He  was  followed,  in  single  file,  by  four  others ; 
one  of  these  was  minus  a  finger  on  the  left  hand. 
The  next  morning  I  read  that  five  immigrants 
had  arrived  in  the  Moraine  Colony.  They  had 
registered  their  footprints  in  the  muddy  margin 
of  the  lower  pond.  Had  an  agent  been  sent  to 
invite  these  colonists,  or  had  they  come  out  of 
their  own  adventurous  spirit?  The  day  following 
their  arrival  I  trailed  them  backward  in  the  hope 
of  learning  whence  they  came  and  why  they  had 
moved.  They  had  traveled  in  the  water  most  of 
the  time;  but  in  places  they  had  come  out  on  the 
bank  to  go  round  a  waterfall  or  to  avoid  an 
obstruction.  Here  and  there  I  saw  their  tracks  in 
the  mud  and  traced  them  to  a  beaver  settlement 
in  which  the  houses  and  dams  had  been  recently 
wrecked.  A  near-by  rancher  told  me  that  he  had 
been  "  making  it  hot "  for  all  beavers  in  his  meadow. 
During  the  next  two  years  I  occasionally  saw  this 
patriarchal  beaver  or  his  tracks  thereabout. 

It  is  the  custom  among  old  male  beavers  to 
idle  away  two  or  three  months  of  each  summer 
1 68 


THE   MORAINE   HOUSE   BEFORE  AND  AFTER   ENLARGEMENT 


(Bum«> 

in  exploring  the  neighboring  brooks  and  streams, 
but  they  never  fail  to  return  in  time  for  autumn 
activities.  It  thus  becomes  plain  how,  when  an 
old  colony  needs  to  move,  some  one  in  it  knows 
where  to  go  and  the  route  to  follow. 

The  Moraine  colonists  gathered  an  unusually 
large  harvest  during  the  autumn  of  1909.  Seven 
hundred  and  thirty-two  sapling  aspens  and  several 
hundred  willows  were  massed  in  the  main  pond 
by  the  largest  house.  This  pile,  which  was  mostly 
below  the  water-line,  was  three  feet  deep  and  one 
hundred  and  twenty-four  feet  in  circumference. 
Would  a  new  house  be  built  this  fall?  This  un- 
usually large  harvest  plainly  told  that  either  child- 
ren or  immigrants  had  increased  the  population 
of  the  colony.  Of  course,  a  hard  winter  may  also 
have  been  expected. 

No;  they  were  not  to  build  a  new  house,  but 
the  old  house  by  the  harvest  pile  was  to  be  en- 
larged. One  day,  just  as  the  evening  shadow  of 
Long's  Peak  had  covered  the  pond,  I  peeped  over 
a  log  on  top  of  the  dam  to  watch  the  work.  The 
house  was  only  forty  feet  distant.  Not  a  rip- 
ple stirred  among  the  inverted  peaks  and  pines 
169 


in  the  clear,  shadow-enameled  pond.  A  lone 
beaver  rose  quietly  in  the  scene  from  the  water 
near  the  house.  Swimming  noiselessly,  he  made 
a  circuit  of  the  pond.  Then  for  a  time,  and  with- 
out any  apparent  purpose,  he  swam  back  and 
forth  over  a  short,  straight  course;  he  moved 
leisurely,  and  occasionally  made  a  shallow,  quiet 
dive.  He  did  not  appear  to  be  watching  anything 
in  particular  or  to  have  anything  special  on  his 
mind.  Yet  his  eyes  may  have  been  scouting  for 
enemies  and  his  mind  may  have  been  full  of  house 
plans.  Finally  he  dived  deeply,  and  the  next  I 
saw  of  him  he  was  climbing  up  the  side  of  the 
house  addition  with  a  pawful  of  mud. 

By  this  time  a  number  of  beavers  were  swim- 
ming in  the  pond  after  the  manner  of  the  first 
one.  Presently  all  began  to  work.  The  addition 
already  stood  more  than  two  feet  above  the  water- 
line.  The  top  of  this  was  crescent-shaped  and 
was  about  seven  feet  long  and  half  as  wide.  It 
was  made  mostly  of  mud,  which  was  plentifully 
reinforced  with  willow  cuttings  and  aspen  sticks. 
For  a  time  all  the  workers  busied  themselves  in 
carrying  mud  and  roots  from  the  bottom  of  the 
170 


(guineb  Cofonp 

pond  and  placing  these  on  the  slowly  rising  ad- 
dition. Eleven  were  working  at  one  time.  By  and 
by  three  swam  ashore,  each  in  a  different  direc- 
tion and  each  a  few  seconds  apart.  After  a  min- 
ute or  two  they  returned  from  the  shore,  each 
carrying  or  trailing  a  long  willow.  These  were 
dragged  to  the  top  of  the  addition,  laid  down,  and 
trampled  in  the  mud.  Meantime  the  mud-carriers 
kept  steadily  at  their  work;  again  willows  were 
brought,  but  this  time  four  beavers  went,  and,  as 
before,  each  was  independent  of  the  others.  I 
did  not  see  how  this  work  could  go  on  without 
some  one  bossing  the  thing,  but  I  failed  to  detect 
any  beaver  acting  as  overseer.  While  there  was 
general  cooperation,  each  acted  independently 
most  of  the  time  and  sometimes  was  apparently 
oblivious  of  the  others.  These  beavers  simply 
worked,  slowly,  silently,  and  steadily;  and  they 
were  still  working  away  methodically  and  with 
dignified  deliberation  when  darkness  hid  them. 


3  OFTEN  wish  that  an  old  beaver  neighbor  of  mine 
would  write  the  story  of  his  life.  Most  of  the 
time  for  eighteen  years  his  mud  hut  was  among 
the  lilies  of  Lily  Lake,  Estes  Park,  Colorado.  He 
lived  through  many  wilderness  dangers,  escaped 
the  strategy  of  trappers,  and  survived  the  danger- 
ous changes  that  come  in  with  the  home-builder. 
His  life  was  long,  stirring,  and  adventurous.  If,  in 
the  first  chapter  of  his  life-story,  he  could  record 
some  of  the  strong,  thrilling  experiences  which 
his  ancestors  must  have  related  to  him,  his  book 
would  be  all  the  better. 

"  Flat-top,"  my  beaver  neighbor,  was  a  pioneer 
and  a  colony-founder.  It  is  probable  that  he  was 
born  in  a  beaver  house  on  Wind  River,  and  it  is 
likely  that  he  spent  the  first  six  years  of  his  life 
along  this  crag  and  aspen  bordered  mountain 
stream.  The  first  time  I  saw  him  he  was  leading 
an  emigrant  party  out  of  this  stream's  steep- 


walled  upper  course.  He  and  his  party  settled, 
or  rather  resettled,  Lily  Lake. 

Flat-top  was  the  name  I  gave  him  because  of 
his  straight  back.  In  most  beaver  the  shoulders 
swell  plumply  above  the  back  line  after  the  out- 
line of  the  grizzly  bear.  Along  with  this  peculiar- 
ity, which  enabled  me  to  be  certain  of  his  presence, 
was  another.  This  was  his  habit  of  gnawing  trees 
off  close  to  the  earth  when  he  felled  them.  The 
finding  of  an  occasional  low-cut  stump  assured 
me  of  his  presence  during  the  periods  I  failed  to 
see  him. 

The  first  beaver  settlement  in  the  lake  appears 
to  have  been  made  in  the  early  seventies,  long 
before  Flat-top  was  born,  by  a  pair  of  beaver  who 
were  full  of  the  pioneer  spirit.  These  settlers  ap- 
parently were  the  sole  survivors  of  a  large  party 
of  emigrants  who  tried  to  climb  the  rugged 
mountains  to  the  lake,  having  been  driven  from 
their  homes  by  encroaching  human  settlers.  Af- 
ter a  long,  tedious  journey,  full  of  hardships  and 
dangers,  they  climbed  into  the  lake  that  was  to 
them,  for  years,  a  real  promised  land. 

Driven  from  Willow  Creek,  they  set  off  up- 
176 


stream  in  search  of  a  new  home,  probably  without 
knowing  of  Lily  Lake,  which  was  five  miles  dis- 
tant and  two  thousand  feet  up  a  steep,  rocky 
mountain.  These  pilgrims  had  traveled  only  a 
little  way  upstream  when  they  found  themselves 
the  greater  portion  of  the  time  out  of  water.  This 
was  only  a  brook  at  its  best  and  in  most  places  it 
was  such  a  shallow,  tiny  streamlet  that  in  it  they 
could  not  dive  beyond  the  reach  of  enemies  or 
even  completely  cool  themselves.  In  stretches 
the  water  spread  thinly  over  a  grassy  flat  or  a 
smooth  granite  slope ;  again  it  was  lost  in  the 
gravel;  or,  murmuring  faintly,  pursued  its  way 
out  of  sight  beneath  piles  of  boulder,  —  marbles 
shaped  by  the  Ice  King.  Much  of  the  time  they 
were  compelled  to  travel  upon  land  exposed  to 
their  enemies.  Water-holes  in  which  they  could 
escape  and  rest  were  long  distances  apart. 

This  plodding,  perilous  five-mile  journey  which 
the  beaver  made  up  the  mountain  to  the  lake 
would  be  easy  and  care-free  for  an  animal  with 
the  physical  make-up  of  a  bear  or  a  wolf,  but 
with  the  beaver  it  is  not  surprising  that  only  two 
of  the  emigrants  survived  this  supreme  trial  and 
177 


escaped  the  numerous  dangers  of  the  pilgrim- 
age. 

Lily  Lake  is  a  shallow,  rounded  lily  garden 
that  reposes  in  a  glacier  meadow  at  an  altitude 
of  nine  thousand  feet ;  its  golden  pond-lilies  often 
dance  among  reflected  snowy  peaks,  while  over 
it  the  granite  crags  of  Lily  Mountain  rise  several 
hundred  feet.  A  few  low,  sedgy,  grassy  acres 
border  half  the  shore,  while  along  the  remainder 
are  crags,  aspen  groves,  willow-clumps,  and  scat- 
tered pines.  Its  waters  come  from  springs  in  its 
western  margin  and  overflow  across  a  low  grassy 
bar  on  its  curving  eastern  shore. 

It  was  autumn  when  these  beaver  pioneers 
came  to  Lily  Lake's  primitive  and  poetic  border. 
The  large  green  leaves  of  the  pond-lily  rested 
upon  the  water,  while  from  the  long  green  stems 
had  fallen  the  sculptured  petals  of  gold  ;  the  wil- 
lows were  wearing  leaves  of  brown  and  bronze, 
and  the  yellow  tremulous  robes  of  the  aspens 
glowed  in  the  golden  sunlight. 

These  fur-clad  pioneers  made  a  dugout  —  a  hole 
in  the  bank  —  and  busily  gathered  winter  food 
until  stopped  by  frost  and  snow;  then,  almost 
178 


$ioneer0 

care-free,  they  dozed  away  the  windy  winter  days 
while  the  lake  was  held  in  waveless  ice  beneath 
the  drifting  snow. 

The  next  summer  a  house  was  built  in  the  lily 
pads  near  the  shore.  Here  a  number  of  children 
were  born  during  the  few  tranquil  years  that  fol- 
lowed. These  times  came  to  an  end  one  bright 
midsummer  day.  Lord  Dunraven  had  a  ditch 
cut  in  the  outlet  rim  of  the  lake  with  the  inten- 
tion of  draining  it  that  his  fish  ponds,  several 
miles  below  in  his  Estes  Park  game-preserve, 
might  have  water.  A  drouth  had  prevailed  for 
several  months,  and  a  new  water-supply  must  be 
had  or  the  fish  ponds  would  go  dry.  The  water 
poured  forth  through  the  ditch,  and  the  days  of 
the  colony  appeared  to  be  numbered. 

A  beaver  must  have  water  for  safety  and  for 
the  ease  of  movement  of  himself  and  his  supplies. 
He  is  skillful  in  maintaining  a  dam  and  in  reg- 
ulating the  water-supply;  these  two  things  re- 
quire much  of  his  time.  In  Lily  Lake  the  dam 
and  the  water  question  had  been  so  nicely  con- 
trolled by  nature  that  with  these  the  colonists 
had  had  nothing  to  do.  However,  they  still  knew 
179 


3n 

how  to  build  dams,  and  water-control  had  not  be- 
come a  lost  art.  The  morning  after  the  comple- 
tion of  the  drainage  ditch,  a  man  was  sent  up  to 
the  lake  to  find  out  why  the  water  was  not  com- 
ing down.  A  short  time  after  the  ditch-diggers 
had  departed,  the  lowering  water  had  aroused  the 
beaver,  who  had  promptly  placed  a  dam  in  the 
mouth  of  the  ditch.  The  man  removed  this  dam 
and  went  down  to  report.  The  beaver  speedily  re- 
placed it.  Thrice  did  the  man  return  and  destroy 
their  dam,  but  thrice  did  the  beaver  promptly 
restore  it. 

The  dam-material  used  in  obstructing  the  ditch 
consisted  chiefly  of  the  peeled  sticks  from  which 
the  beaver  had  eaten  the  bark  in  winter ;  along 
with  these  were  mud  and  grass.  The  fourth 
time  that  the  ditch  guard  returned,  he  threw 
away  all  the  material  in  the  dam  and  then  set 
some  steel  traps  in  the  water  by  the  mouth  of  the 
ditch.  The  first  two  beaver  who  came  to  reblock- 
ade  the  ditch  were  caught  in  these  traps  and 
drowned  while  struggling  to  free  themselves. 
Other  beaver  heroically  continued  the  work  that 
these  had  begun.  The  cutting  down  of  saplings 
1 80 


(pioneers 

and  the  procuring  of  new  material  made  their 
work  slow,  very  slow,  in  the  face  of  the  swiftly 
escaping  water;  when  the  ditch  was  at  last  ob- 
structed, a  part  of  the  material  which  formed  this 
new  dam  consisted  of  the  traps  and  the  dead 
bodies  of  the  two  beaver  who  had  bravely  perished 
while  trying  to  save  the  colony. 

The  ditch  guard  returned  with  a  rifle,  and 
came  to  stay.  The  first  beaver  to  come  within 
range  was  shot.  The  guard  again  removed  the 
dam,  made  a  fire  about  twenty  feet  from  the  ditch, 
and  planned  to  spend  the  night  on  guard,  rifle 
in  hand.  Toward  morning  he  became  drowsy, 
sat  down  by  the  fire,  heard  the  air  in  the  pines 
at  his  back,  watched  the  star-sown  water,  and 
finally  fell  asleep.  While  he  thus  slept,  with  his 
rifle  across  his  lap,  the  beaver  placed  another  — 
their  last  —  obstruction  before  the  outrushing 
water. 

On  awakening,  the  sleeper  tore  out  the  dam 
and  stood  guard  over  the  ditch.  All  that  after- 
noon a  number  of  beaver  hovered  about,  watch- 
ing for  an  opportunity  to  stop  the  water  again. 
Their  opportunity  never  came,  and  three  who 
181 


ventured  too  near  the  rifleman  gave  up  their 
lives,  —  reddening  the  clear  water  with  their  life- 
blood  in  vain. 

The  lake  was  drained,  and  the  colonists  aban- 
doned their  homes.  One  night,  a  few  days  after 
the  final  attempt  to  blockade  the  ditch,  an  unwill- 
ing beaver  emigrant  party  climbed  silently  out 
of  the  uncovered  entrance  of  their  house  and 
made  their  way  quietly,  slowly,  beneath  the  stars, 
across  the  mountain,  descending  thence  to  Wind 
River,  where  they  founded  a  new  colony. 

Winter  came  to  the  old  lake-bed,  and  the  lily 
roots  froze  and  died.  The  beaver  houses  rapidly 
crumbled,  and  for  a  few  years  the  picturesque 
ruins  of  the  beaver  settlement,  like  many  a  set- 
tlement abandoned  by  man,  stood  pathetically 
in  the  midst  of  wilderness  desolation.  Slowly  the 
water  rose  to  its  old  level  in  the  lake,  as  the  out- 
let ditch  gradually  filled  with  swelling  turf  and 
drifting  sticks  and  trash.  Then  the  lilies  came 
back  with  rafts  of  green  and  boats  of  gold  to 
enliven  this  lakelet  of  repose. 

One  autumn  morning,  while  returning  to  my 
cabin  after  a  night  near  the  stars  on  Lily  Moun- 
182 


Q0eatoer  (pioneer* 

tain,  I  paused  on  a  crag  to  watch  the  changing 
morning  light  down  Wind  River  Canon.  While 
thus  engaged,  Flat-top  and  a  party  of  colonists 
came  along  a  game  trail  within  a  few  yards  of 
me,  evidently  bound  for  the  lake,  which  was  only 
a  short  distance  away.  I  silently  followed  them. 
This  was  my  introduction  to  Flat-top. 

On  the  shore  these  seven  adventurers  paused 
for  a  moment  to  behold  the  scene,  or,  possibly,  to 
dream  of  empire ;  then  they  waddled  out  into  the 
water  and  made  a  circuit  of  the  lake.  Probably 
Flat-top  had  been  here  before  as  an  explorer. 
Within  two  hours  after  their  arrival  these  colon-. 
ists  began  building  for  a  permanent  settlement. 

It  was  late  to  begin  winter  preparation.  The 
clean,  white  aspens  had  shed  their  golden  leaves 
and  stood  waiting  to  welcome  the  snows.  This 
lateness  may  account  for  the  makeshift  of  a  hut 
which  the  colonists  constructed.  This  was  built 
against  the  bank  with  only  one  edge  in  the  water ; 
the  entrance  to  it  was  a  twelve-foot  tunnel  that 
ended  in  the  lake-bottom  where  the  water  was 
two  feet  deep. 

The  beaver  were  collecting  green  aspen  and 


3n 

willow  cuttings  in  the  water  by  the  tunnel-entrance 
when  the  lake  froze  over.  Fortunately  for  the 
colonists,  with  their  scanty  supply  of  food,  the 
winter  was  a  short  one,  and  by  the  first  of  April 
they  were  able  to  dig  the  roots  of  water  plants 
along  the  shallow  shore  where  the  ice  had  melted. 
One  settler  succumbed  during  the  winter,  but 
by  summer  the  others  had  commenced  work  on 
a  permanent  house,  which  was  completed  before 
harvest  time. 

I  had  a  few  glimpses  of  the  harvest-gathering 
and  occasionally  saw  Flat-top.  One  evening,  while 
watching  the  harvesters,  I  saw  three  new  workers. 
Three  emigrants — from  somewhere — had  joined 
the  colonists.  A  total  of  fifteen,  five  of  whom 
were  youngsters,  went  into  winter  quarters, —  a 
large,  comfortable  house,  a  goodly  supply  of  food, 
and  a  location  off  the  track  of  trappers.  The  cold, 
white  days  promised  only  peace.  But  an  unpre- 
ventable  catastrophe  came  before  the  winter  was 
half  over. 

One  night  a  high  wind  began  to  bombard  the 
ice-bound  lake  with  heavy  blasts.  The  force  of 
these  intermittent  gales  suggested  that  the  wind 
184 


was  trying  to  dislodge  the  entire  ice  covering  of 
the  lake;  and  indeed  that  very  nearly  happened. 

Before  the  crisis  came,  I  went  to  the  lake,  believ- 
ing it  to  be  the  best  place  to  witness  the  full  effects 
of  this  most  enthusiastic  wind.  Across  the  ice 
the  gale  boomed,  roaring  in  the  restraining  forest 
beyond.  These  broken  rushes  set  the  ice  vibrat- 
ing and  the  water  rolling  and  swelling  beneath. 
During  one  of  these  blasts  the  swelling  water 
burst  the  ice  explosively  upward  in  a  fractured 
ridge  entirely  across  the  lake.  In  the  next  few 
minutes  the  entire  surface  broke  up,  and  the  wind 
began  to  drive  the  cakes  upon  the  windward 
shore. 

A  large  flatboat  cake  was  swept  against  the 
beaver  house,  sheared  it  off  on  the  water-line, 
and  overturned  the  conelike  top  into  the  lake. 
The  beaver  took  refuge  in  the  tunnel  which  ran 
beneath  the  lake-bottom.  This  proved  a  death- 
trap, for  its  shore  end  above  the  water-line  was 
clogged  with  ice.  As  the  lake  had  swelled  and 
surged  beneath  the  beating  of  the  wind,  the  water 
had  gushed  out  and  streamed  back  into  the  tunnel 
again  and  again,  until  ice  formed  in  and  closed 
185 


the  outer  entrance.  Against  this  ice  four  beaver 
were  smothered  or  drowned.  I  surmised  the 
tragedy  but  was  helpless  to  prevent  it.  Mean- 
while the  others  doubled  back  and  took  refuge 
upon  the  ruined  stump  of  their  home.  From  a 
clump  of  near-by  pines  I  watched  this  wild  drama. 

Less  than  half  an  hour  after  the  house  was 
wrecked,  these  indomitable  animals  began  to  re- 
build it.  Lashed  by  icy  waves,  beaten  by  the 
wind,  half-coated  with  ice,  these  home-loving 
people  strove  to  rebuild  their  home.  Mud  was 
brought  from  the  bottom  of  the  pond  and  piled 
upon  the  shattered  foundation.  This  mud  set  — 
froze  —  almost  instantly  on  being  placed.  They 
worked  desperately,  and  from  time  to  time  I  caught 
sight  of  Flat-top.  Toward  evening  it  appeared 
possible  that  the  house  might  be  restored,  but, 
just  as  darkness  was  falling,  a  roaring  gust  struck 
the  lake  and  a  great  swell  threw  the  new  part 
into  the  water. 

The  colonists  gave  up  the  hopeless  task  and 

that  night  fled  down  the  mountain.  Two  were 

killed  before  they  had  gone  a  quarter  of  a  mile. 

Along  the  trail  were  three  other  red  smears  upon 

1 86 


(pioneers 

the  crusted  snow;  each  told  of  a  death  and  a 
feast  upon  the  wintry  mountain-side  among  the 
solemn  pines.  Flat-top  with  five  others  finally 
gained  the  Wind  River  Colony,  from  which  he 
had  led  his  emigrants  two  years  before. 

One  day  the  following  June,  while  examining 
the  lilies  in  the  lake,  I  came  upon  a  low,  freshly 
cut  stump;  —  Flat-top  had  returned.  A  number 
of  colonists  were  with  him  and  all  had  come  to 
stay. 

All  sizable  aspen  that  were  within  a  few  yards 
of  the  water  had  been  cut  away,  but  at  the  south- 
west corner  of  the  lake,  about  sixty  feet  from  the 
shore,  was  an  aspen  thicket.  Flat-top  and  his 
fellow  workers  cut  a  canal  from  the  lake  through 
a  low,  sedgy  flat  into  this  aspen  thicket.  The  canal 
was  straight,  about  fourteen  inches  deep  and 
twenty-six  inches  wide.  Its  walls  were  smoothly 
cut  and  most  of  the  excavated  material  was  piled 
evenly  on  one  side  of  the  canal  and  about  eight 
inches  from  it.  It  had  an  angular,  mechanical  ap- 
pearance, and  suggested  the  work  not  of  a  beaver, 
but  of  man,  and  that  of  a  very  careful  man  too. 

Down  this  canal  the  colonists  floated  the  tim- 
187 


bers  used  in  building  their  two  houses.  On  the 
completion  of  the  houses,  the  home-builders  re- 
turned to  the  grove  and  procured  winter  supplies. 
In  most  cases  the  small  aspen  were  floated  to  the 
pile  between  the  houses  with  an  adept  skill,  with- 
out severing  the  trunk  or  cutting  off  a  single 
limb. 

The  colonists  had  a  few  years  of  ideal  beaver 
life.  One  summer  I  came  upon  Flat-top  and  a 
few  other  beaver  by  the  brook  that  drains  the 
lake,  and  at  a  point  about  half  a  mile  below  its 
outlet.  It  was  along  this  brook  that  Flat-top's 
intrepid  ancestors  had  painfully  climbed  to  estab- 
lish the  first  settlement  in  the  lake.  Commonly 
each  summer  several  beaver  descended  the  moun- 
tain and  spent  a  few  weeks  of  vacation  along 
Wind  River.  Invariably  they  returned  before  the 
end  of  August;  and  autumn  harvest-gathering 
usually  began  shortly  after  their  return. 

Year  after  year  the  regularly  equipped  trappers 
passed  the  lake  without  stopping.  The  houses 
did  not  show  distinctly  from  the  trail,  and  the 
trappers  did  not  know  that  there  were  beaver  in 
this  place.  But  this  peaceful,  populous  lake  was 
188 


not  forever  to  remain  immune  from  the  wiles  of 
man,  and  one  day  it  was  planted  with  that  bar- 
baric, cruel  torture-machine,  the  steel  trap. 

A  cultured  consumptive,  who  had  returned 
temporarily  to  nature,  was  boarding  at  a  ranch 
house  several  miles  away.  While  out  riding  he 
discovered  the  colony  and  at  once  resolved  to 
depopulate  it.  The  beaver  ignored  his  array  of 
traps  until  he  enlisted  the  services  of  an  old 
trapper,  whose  skill  sent  most  of  the  beaver  to 
their  death  before  the  sepia-colored  catkins  ap- 
peared upon  the  aspens.  Flat-top  escaped. 

The  ruinous  raid  of  the  trappers  was  followed 
by  a  dry  season,  and  during  the  drouth  a  rancher 
down  the  mountain  came  up  prospecting  for 
water.  He  cut  a  ditch  in  the  outlet  ridge  of  the 
lake,  and  out  gushed  the  water.  He  started  home 
in  a  cheerful  mood,  but  long  before  he  arrived, 
the  "first  engineers"  had  blocked  his  ditch.  Dur- 
ing the  next  few  days  and  nights  the  rancher 
made  many  trips  from  his  house  to  the  lake, 
and  when  he  was  not  in  the  ditch,  swearing,  and 
opening  it,  the  beaver  were  in  it  shutting  off 
the  water. 

189 


From  time  to  time  I  dropped  around  to  see 
the  struggle,  one  day  coming  upon  the  scene 
while  the  beaver  were  completing  a  blockade. 
For  a  time  the  beaver  hesitated ;  then  they  partly 
resumed  operations  and  carried  material  to  the 
spot,  but  without  showing  themselves  entirely 
above  water.  When  it  appeared  that  they  must 
have  enough  to  complete  the  blockade,  I  advanced 
a  trifle  nearer  so  as  to  have  a  good  view  while 
they  placed  the  accumulated  material.  For  a  time 
not  a  beaver  showed  himself.  By  and  by  an  aged 
one  climbed  out  of  the  water,  pretending  not 
to  notice  me,  and  deliberately  piled  things  right 
and  left  until  he  had  completed  the  ditch-dam- 
ming to  his  satisfaction.  This  act  was  audacious 
and  truly  heroic.  The  hero  was  Flat-top. 

In  this  contest  with  the  rancher,  the  beaver 
persisted  and  worked  so  effectively  that  they  at 
last  won  and  saved  their  homes,  in  the  face  of  what 
appeared  to  be  an  unconquerable  opposition. 

A  little  while  after  this  incident,  a  home-seeker 

came  along,  and,  liking  the  place,  built  a  cabin  in 

a  clump  of  pines  close  to  the  southern  shore. 

Though  he  was  a  gray  old  man  without  a  family, 

190 


r  (pionttr* 

I  imagined  he  would  exterminate  the  beaver  and 
looked  upon  him  with  a  lack  of  neighborly 
feeling. 

Several  months  went  by,  and  I  had  failed  to 
call  upon  him,  but  one  day  while  passing  I  heard 
him  order  a  trapper  off  the  place.  This  order  was 
accompanied  by  so  strong  a  declaration  of  prin- 
ciples—  together  with  a  humane  plea  for  the  life 
of  every  wild  animal  —  that  I  made  haste  to  call 
that  evening. 

One  afternoon  in  a  pine  thicket,  close  to  the 
lake-shore,  I  came  upon  two  gray  wolves,  both 
devouring  beaver,  which  had  met  their  death 
while  harvesting  aspens  for  winter.  The  follow- 
ing spring  I  had  a  more  delightful  glimpse  of 
life  in  the  wilds.  Within  fifty  feet  of  the  lake- 
shore  stood  a  large  pine  stump  that  rose  about 
ten  feet  from  the  ground.  Feeling  that  I  should 
escape  notice  if  I  sat  still  on  the  top,  I  climbed 
up.  Though  it  was  mid-forenoon,  the  beaver 
came  out  of  the  lake  and  wandered  about  nib- 
bling here  and  there  at  the  few  green  plants  of 
early  spring.  They  did  not  detect  me.  They  ac- 
tually appeared  to  enjoy  themselves.  This  is  the 
191 


only  time  that  I  ever  saw  a  beaver  fully  at  ease 
and  apparently  happy  on  land.  In  the  midst  of 
their  pleasures,  a  flock  of  mountain  sheep  came 
along  and  mingled  with  them.  The  beaver  paused 
and  stared;  now  and  then  a  sheep  would  mo- 
mentarily stare  at  a  beaver,  or  sniff  the  air  as 
though  he  did  not  quite  like  beaver  odor.  In  less 
than  a  minute  the  flock  moved  on,  but  just  as 
they  started,  a  beaver  passed  in  front  of  the  lead 
ram,  who  made  a  playful  pretense  of  a  butt  at 
him;  to  this  the  beaver  paid  not  the  slightest 
heed. 

During  the  homesteader's  second  summer  he 
concluded  to  raise  the  outlet  ridge,  deepen  the 
water,  and  make  a  fish  pond  of  the  lake.  Being 
poor,  he  worked  alone  with  wheelbarrow  and 
shovel.  The  beaver  evidently  watched  the  pro- 
gress of  the  work,  and  each  morning  their  fresh 
footprints  showed  in  the  newly  piled  earth. 
Shortly  before  the  dam  was  completed,  the  home- 
steader was  called  away  for  a  few  days,  and  on 
his  return  he  was  astonished  to  find  that  the 
beaver  had  completed  his  dam !  The  part  made 
by  the  beaver  suited  him  as  to  height  and  length, 
192 


so  he  covered  it  over  with  earth  and  allowed  it  to 
remain.  His  work  in  turn  was  inspected  and  ap- 
parently approved  by  the  beaver. 

How  long  does  a  beaver  live  ?  Trappers  say 
from  fifteen  to  fifty  years.  I  had  glimpses  of 
Flat-top  through  eighteen  years,  and  he  must 
have  been  not  less  than  four  years  of  age  when  I 
first  met  him.  This  would  make  his  age  twenty- 
two  years ;  but  he  may  have  been  six  years  of 
age — he  looked  it  —  the  morning  he  first  led 
emigrants  into  Lily  Lake ;  and  he  may  have 
lived  a  few  years  after  I  saw  him  last.  But  only 
the  chosen  few  among  the  beaver  can  succeed  in 
living  as  long  as  Flat-top.  The  last  time  I  saw 
him  was  the  day  he  dared  me  and  blockaded  the 
drain  ditch  and  stopped  the  outrushing  water. 

Flat-top  has  vanished,  and  the  kind  old  home- 
steader has  gone  to  his  last  long  sleep ;  but  the 
lake  still  remains,  and  still  there  stands  a  beaver 
house  among  the  pond-lilies. 


n 


CoCott£  in  li 


3N  the  Medicine  Bow  Mountains  one  December 
day,  I  came  upon  a  beaver  house  that  was 
surrounded  by  a  pack  of  wolves.  These  beasts 
were  trying  to  break  into  the  house.  Apparently 
an  early  autumn  snow  had  blanketed  the  house 
and  thus  prevented  its  walls  from  freezing.  The 
soft  condition  of  the  walls,  along  with  the  ex- 
treme hunger  of  the  wolves,  led  to  this  assault. 
Two  of  these  animals  were  near  the  top  of  the 
house  clawing  away  at  a  rapid  rate.  Now  and 
then  one  of  the  sticks  or  poles  in  the  house-wall 
was  encountered,  and  at  this  the  wolf  would  bite 
and  tear  furiously.  Occasionally  one  of  the  wolves 
caught  a  resisting  stick  in  his  teeth,  and,  leaning- 
back,  shook  his  head,  endeavoring  with  all  his 
might  to  tear  it  out.  A  number  of  wolves  lay 
about  expectant;  a  few  sat  up  eagerly  on 
haunches,  while  others  moved  about  snarling, 
driving  the  others  off  a  few  yards,  to  be  in  turn 
driven  off  themselves.  Shortly  before  they  dis- 
197 


3n  (gfaftev 

covered  me,  there  was  a  fierce  fight  on  top  of  the 
house,  in  which  several  mixed. 

Even  though  they  had  broken  into  the  house, 
it  would  have  availed  them  nothing,  for  in  this, 
as  in  all  old  colonies,  there  were  safety  tunnels 
from  the  house  which  extended  beneath  the  pond 
to  points  on  shore.  In  these  tunnels  the  beaver 
find  safety,  if  by  any  means  the  house  is  ruined. 
Although  carnivorous  animals  are  fond  of  beaver 
flesh,  they  rarely  take  the  useless  trouble  of  dig- 
ging into  a  house.  Occasionally  a  wolverine  or  a 
bear  may  dig  into  a  thin-walled  house  or  one  not 
frozen,  then,  after  breaking  in,  lie  in  wait,  and 
endeavor  to  make  a  capture  while  the  beaver  are 
repairing  the  hole.  Beaver  are  more  secure  from 
enemies  during  the  winter  than  at  any  other 
time.  It  is  while  felling  a  tree  far  from  the  water 
or  while  following  a  shallow  stream  that  most 
beaver  are  captured  by  their  enemies. 

Many  a  time  in  winter  I  have  made  a  pleasant 
visit  to  a  beaver  colony.  One  day,  a  few  hours 
after  a  heavy  snowfall,  I  came  out  of  a  dark  forest 
and  stood  for  a  time  on  the  edge  of  the  snow- 
covered  pond.  Around  were  the  firs  and  spruces 
198 


CoCony  in  TUi 

of  the  forest,  moveless  as  statues  and  each  a 
pointed  cone  of  snow.  Around  the  small  snowy 
plain  of  the  pond,  the  drooping  snow-entangled 
willows  held  their  heads  together  in  contented 
and  thoughtful  silence.  Everything  was  serene. 

A  clean  fox  track  led  from  the  woods  in  a 
straight  line  across  the  snowy  surface  of  the 
pond  to  the  house,  which  stood  near  the  centre 
of  this  smooth  white  opening.  The  tracks  en- 
circled the  house  and  ascended  to  the  top  of  it, 
where  the  record  imprinted  in  the  snow  told  that 
here  he  watchfully  rested.  Descending,  he  had 
sniffed  at  the  bushy  tips  of  the  winter  food-pile 
that  thrust  up  through  the  ice,  then  crossed  the 
dam  to  plunge  into  the  snowy  tangle  of  willows. 

Water  was  still  pouring  and  gurgling  down  a 
steep  beaver  slide.  This  was  ice-and-snow-covered 
except  at  two  points  where  the  swift  splashing 
water  dashed  intermittently  from  a  deep  icy  vent. 
While  I  was  examining  the  beauty  of  the  up- 
building  icy  buttresses  by  one  of  the  vents,  a  water- 
ouzel  came  forth  and  alighted  almost  within  reach. 
I  stood  still.  After  giving  a  few  of  his  nodding 
bows,  he  reentered  the  vent.  Presently  he  emerged 
199 


from  the  lower  vent  and,  alighting  upon  an  ice- 
coated  boulder,  indifferent  to  the  gray  sky  from 
which  scattered  flakes  were  slowly  falling  and  de- 
spite a  temperature  of  five  below  zero,  he  sang 
low  and  sweetly  for  several  seconds. 

Beaver  do  not  surrender  themselves  to  the  con- 
fines of  a  house  and  pond  until  cold  solidly 
covers  the  pond  with  a  roof  of  ice.  The  time  of 
this  is  commonly  about  the  first  of  December, 
but  the  date  is  of  course,  in  a  measure,  depend- 
ent upon  latitude,  altitude,  and  the  peculiar 
weather  conditions  of  each  year.  Most  beaver 
return  to  the  old  colony,  or  start  a  new  one  by 
the  first  of  September.  They  have  had  a  merry 
rambling  summer  and  energetically  take  hold  to 
have  the  house  and  dam  ready  and  a  harvest 
stored  by  the  time  winter  begins. 

But  they  are  not  always  ready.  Enemies  may 
harass  them,  low  water  delay  them,  or  an  un- 
usually early  winter  or  e"ven  a  heavy  snow  may 
so  hamper  them  that,  despite  greatest  effort,  the 
ice  puts  a  time  lock  upon  the  pond  and  closes  them 
in  for  the  winter  without  sufficient  supplies. 

Early  one  October  an  early  snowfall  worked 
200 


Cofong  in 

hardship  in  several  colonies  near  my  home.  For- 
tunately the  ponds  were  not  deeply  frozen,  and 
those  colonies  which  had  aspen  groves  close  to 
the  water  succeeded  in  felling  and  dragging  in 
sufficient  food-supplies  for  the  winter.  As  snow 
drifted  into  the  groves,  many  of  the  trees  har- 
vested were  cut  from  the  tops  of  snowdrifts,  and 
thus  left  high  stumps.  The  following  summer  a 
number  of  these  stood  four  feet  above  the  earth 
and  presented  a  striking  appearance  alongside  the 
sixteen-inch  stumps  of  normal  height. 

One  of  these  storm-caught  colonies  fared  badly. 
The  inhabitants  were  obliged  to  go  a  long  dis- 
tance from  the  water  for  trees,  and  their  all  too 
scanty  harvest  was  gathered  with  some  loss  of 
life.  Apparently  both  wolves  and  lions  discovered 
the  unfortunate  predicament  of  the  harvesters, 
and  lay  in  wait  to  catch  them  as  they  floundered 
slowly  through  the  snow.  The  following  winter 
these  colonists  tunneled  through  the  bottom  — 
perhaps  the  least  frozen  part  of  the  dam  —  and 
came  forth  for  food  long  before  the  break-up  of 
the  ice.  The  water  drained  from  the  pond,  and 
after  the  ice  had  melted,  the  bottom  of  the  pond 
201 


revealed  a  torn-up  condition  as  though  the  starv- 
ing winter  inmates  had  dug  out  for  food  every 
root  and  rootstock  to  be  found  in  the  bottom. 

While  visiting  ponds  at  the  beginning  of  win- 
ter, I  have  many  times  noticed  that,  shortly  after 
the  pond  was  solidly  frozen  over,  a  hole  was  made 
through  the  dam  just  below  the  water-surface  of 
the  pond.  This  lowered  the  water-level  two  inches 
or  more.  Did  this  slight  lowering  of  the  water 
have  to  do  with  the  ventilation  of  the  ice-covered 
pond,  or  was  it  to  put  a  check  on  deep  freezing, 
or  for  both  purposes  ? 

In  the  majority  of  cases  these  holes  were  made 
from  ponds  which,  during  the  winter,  received 
but  a  meagre  inflow  of  fresh  water.  Naturally, 
ponds  receiving  a  strong  inflow  of  water  would 
be  better  ventilated,  and  would  freeze  less  swiftly 
and  deeply  than  those  whose  waters  became 
stagnant.  This  drawing-off  of  water  after  a  few 
inches  of  ice  had  formed,  would,  in  some  places, 
despite  the  settling  of  the  ice,  form  an  air  blanket 
that  would  delay  freezing,  and  thus  possibly  pre- 
vent the  ice  from  forming  so  thickly.  The  air 
admitted  by  drawing  off  the  water  would  be  in- 
202 


(Cofonj) 


n 


closed  beneath  the  ice,  and  might  thus  be  helpful 
to  the  beaver  inclosed  in  house  and  pond.  In 
only  a  few  cases  were  these  holes  made  from  ponds 
which  had  subway  tunnels,  —  tunnels  which  run 
from  alongside  the  house  through  the  bottom  of 
the  pond  to  a  point  above  water-level  on  the  shore. 
In  a  few  instances  the  beaver,  I  do  not  know  how 
many,  came  out  of  this  hole,  cut  and  ate  a  few 
twigs,  and  then  returned  and  closed  it.  Twice  this 
was  used  as  a  way  out  by  beaver  who  emerged 
and  went  to  other  colonies.  In  one  case  the 
beaver  entered  the  other  pond  by  making  a  hole 
through  the  dam.  In  the  other  they  entered  the 
pond  through  a  subway  tunnel.  While  these  holes 
which  lower  the  pond-level  may  have  chiefly  to 
do  with  ventilation,  or  may  be  for  the  purpose  of 
putting  a  check  on  freezing,  my  evidence  is  not 
ample  enough  for  final  conclusions. 

A  sentence  of  close  confinement  for  about  a 
third  of  the  year  for  an  animal  that  breathes  air 
and  uses  pure  water,  is  simply  one  of  the  strange 
ways  that  work  out  with  nature.  While  winter 
lasts,  a  beaver  must  spend  his  time  either  in  the 
dark,  ill-ventilated  house  or  in  the  water  of  the 
203 


pond.  Apparently  he  does  much  sleeping  and 
possibly  has  a  dull  time  of  it.  No  news,  no  vis- 
itors, and  apparently  nothing  to  do!  Still  a 
beaver  has  food,  and  when  dangers  surround  the 
wild  folk  outside  the  pond's  roof  of  glass,  he 
would  be  considered  a  good  risk  for  life  insurance. 

Although  the  pond  is  commonly  covered  with 
snow,  or  the  ice  curtained  with  air  bubbles,  there 
have  been  numerous  times  during  which  I  have 
had  clear  views  into  the  water,  and  could  see  and 
enjoy  all  that  was  going  on  within,  as  completely 
as  though  looking  at  fish  or  turtles  through  the 
glass  walls  of  an  aquarium.  Often  I  have  peered 
through  the  ice  which  covered  the  most  used 
place  of  a  winter  beaver  pond, —  the  area  be- 
tween the  house-entrance  and  the  food-pile.  The 
thinness  of  the  ice  over  this  place  was  main- 
tained by  spring-water  which  came  up  through 
the  bottom,  and  the  beaver  had  so  arranged  their 
affairs  that  they  made  the  best  use  of  this  shal- 
low-freezing water.  Of  course  most  ponds  are 
without  springs. 

Many  a  time  I  have  seen  a  beaver  come  out  of 
the  doorway  of  his  house  and  go  swimming  to- 
204 


<Cofonj>  in 

ward  the  food-pile  with  his  hands  against  his 
breast.  At  the  pile,  if  there  was  nothing  small  or 
short  enough,  he  set  to  work  and  gnawed  it  off. 
The  piece  secured  was  taken  into  the  doorway 
either  in  his  hands  or  in  his  teeth.  Afterward  a 
beaver  —  the  same  one,  I  suppose — came  out 
of  the  doorway,  and  cast  the  clean  bone  of  the 
stick,  from  which  the  bark  had  been  eaten,  into 
the  bottom  of  the  pond. 

When  there  is  nothing  else  to  do,  the  beaver 
apparently  comes  into  the  pond  a  few  times  each 
day  for  a  swim.  In  the  midst  of  swimming  he 
rises  at  times  to  the  under  surface  of  the  ice  and, 
with  his  nose  against  it,  exhales  a  quantity  of  air. 
After  remaining  with  nose  at  this  point  a  few 
seconds,  the  action  of  the  air  bubbles  indicates 
that  he  is  inhaling  the  purified  air. 

The  rootstocks  of  the  water-lily  are  sometimes 
dug  from  the  bottom  of  the  pond.  At  other  times 
the  beaver  eats  the  stalks  of  plants  that  grow  in 
the  water,  or  digs  out  willow  or  other  roots  around 
the  edge  of  the  pond.  Numbers  of  trout  frequently 
lie  in  the  water  close  to  the  doorway  of  a  beaver 
house  or  around  the  food-pile.  Possibly  the  beaver 
205 


3n 

dispense  tidbits  of  food  that  are  liked  by  the 
trout.  Occasionally  grubs  fall  from  the  holes  in 
'wood  from  which  beaver  have  eaten  the  bark. 
While  beaver  are  digging  in  the  bottom  of  the 
pond  they  doubtless  unearth  food-scraps  that 
are  welcome  to  trout,  for  these  often  hover  in 
numbers  on  the  outskirts  of  the  muddy  water 
which  beaver  roil  while  digging. 

Although  it  appears  that  beaver  have  dull 
winters  with  but  little  to  do  but  eat,  sleep,  and 
swim,  it  is  probable  that  some  of  their  time  is 
spent  at  work.  A  part  of  their  tunneling  and 
pond-bottom  canal-digging  is  done  in  winter.  I 
have  known  of  their  extending  canals  in  the  bot- 
tom of  the  pond  and  making  submarine  tunnels 
while  the  pond  was  ice-covered. 

There  are  times  when  the  dam  has  sprung  a 
leak  and  must  be  repaired  on  the  inside  beneath 
the  ice.  Early  thaws  and  spring  freshets  some- 
times wreck  a  dam  beyond  repair,  or  do  extens- 
ive damage  to  the  house  or  dam  at  the  time  when 
beaver  enemies  are  likely  to  be  at  their  leanest. 
The  house  and  dam  are  sometimes  ruined  when 
the  streams  are  so  low  and  icy  that  it  is  not  safe 
206 


Cofonp  in  TtKnfer 

for  beaver  to  go  about.  I  know  of  two  colonies 
that  were  crushed  out  of  existence  by  snow-slides. 
The  dam  is  on  rare  occasions  broken  by  late 
spring  ice -jams.  Sometimes  the  ice-cakes  pile 
up  on  the  dam  and  raise  the  water  in  the  pond  to 
such  a  height  that  it  rises  in  the  house  and  drives 
the  beaver  forth.  A  few  beaver  houses  that  are 
situated  in  places  where  the  ice  or  spring  floods 
may  raise  the  water  much  above  normal  level  are 
shaped  to  meet  this  trouble.  The  house  is  built 
higher  and  the  room  internally  is  twice  the  usual 
height.  Thus  there  is  space  for  the  beaver  to 
build  a  "  platform  bed "  on  the  floor  and  thus 
raise  themselves  a  foot  or  more  above  the  common 
level.  Despite  all  pains,  floods  sometimes  drive 
beaver  to  the  housetops. 

I.  By  laying  up  supplies,  and  by  the  help  of  arti- 
ficial pond,  canal,  and  house,  the  beaver  is  able 
to  spend  his  winter  without  hunger  and  with 
comfort  and  far  greater  safety  than  his  neighbors. 
The  winds  may  blow  and  blinding  snow  or  flying 
limbs  may  endanger  those  outside;  snow  may 
bury  the  forage  of  bird  and  deer,  and  make  the 
movement  of  beasts  of  prey  slow  and  difficult ;  the 
207 


cold  may  freeze  and  freeze  and  strew  the  wilds 
with  lean  and  frozen  forms ;  but  the  beaver  be- 
neath ice  and  snow  shelter  serenely  spends  the 
days  with  comfort  and  safety. 

The  winter,  with  its  days  long  or  short,  never 
comes  to  an  end,  however,  quite  early  enough  to 
suit  the  beaver.  They  emerge  from  the  pond  at 
the  earliest  moment  that  frozen  conditions  will 
allow.  If  their  subway  is  choked  with  ice,  and 
food  becomes  exhausted,  they  will  sometimes  bore 
holes  through  the  base  of  the  dam. 

Apparently,  too,  holes  of  this  kind  are  bored 
through,  or  a  section  cut  through  the  dam  to  the 
bottom,  for  the  purpose  of  completely  draining 
the  pond.  As  this  appears  to  be  most  often  done 
with  ponds  that  are  full  of  stagnant  water,  or 
water  almost  stagnant,  this  draining  may  be  a 
part  of  the  beaver's  sanitary  work,  —  done  for  the 
purpose  of  getting  filth  and  stale  water  out  and 
also  that  the  sour  bottom  may  be  sterilized  by 
sun  and  wind. 

Conditions  determine  the  length  of  time  before 
the  dam  is  repaired  and  the  pond  refilled.  In  some 
cases  this  is  done  after  the  lapse  of  a  few  weeks 
208 


(Cofonj)  in  JDinttv 

and  in  others  not  until  autumn.  Ponds  that  have 
large  pure  streams  running  through  them  do  not 
need  this  emptying,  but  occasionally  they  acci- 
dentally have  it.  Most  beaver  colonies  are  deserted 
in  summer,  and  fall  thus  into  temporary  decline. 
By  late  summer  or  early  autumn  the  beaver 
have  assembled  at  the  place  where  the  winter  is 
to  be  spent.  There  are  patriarchs,  youngsters, 
and  those  in  the  prime  of  life.  Around  the  old 
home  are  many  who  set  forth  from  it  when  the 
violets  were  blooming,  when  the  grass  was  at  its 
greenest,  and  when  mated  birds  were  building. 
During  the  summer  a  few  perished,  while  others 
cast  their  lot  with  other  established  colonies.  A 
few  of  the  younger  make  a  start  for  themselves 
in  new  scenes, — found  a  new  colony.  Again  the 
dam  is  repaired  and  the  house  recovered;  again 
the  harvest  home,  and  again  a  primitive  home- 
building  family  are  housed  in  a  hut  that  willing 
hands  have  fashioned.  Again  the  pond  freezes, 
and  again  the  snowfalls  upon  a  home  that  stands 
in  a  valley  where  countless  generations  of  beaver 
have  lived  through  ice-bound  winters  and  the 
ever-changing  happy  seasons. 


"work  like  a  beaver"  is  an  almost  uni- 
versal  expression  for  energetic  and  intelli- 
gent persistence,  but  who  realizes  the  magnitude 
of  the  beaver's  works  ?  What  he  has  accomplished 
is  not  only  monumental  but  useful  to  man.  He 
was  the  original  Conservationist.  An  interesting 
and  valuable  book  could  be  written  concerning 
the  earth  as  influenced  and  benefited  by  the  labors 
of  the  beaver.  The  beaver  is  intimately  associated 
with  the  natural  resources,  soil,  and  water.  His 
work  is  not  yet  done,  and  along  the  sources  of 
innumerable  streams  he  will  ever  be  -needed  to 
save  soil,  to  regulate  stream-flow,  and  to  provide 
pools  for  the  fish. 

The   beaver's   conservation   work    is   accom- 
plished by  means  of  the  dams  he  constructs  across 
streams  of  flowing  water  and  the  ponds  that  are 
thus  formed.   These  dams  and  ponds  render  a 
213 


3n 

number  of  services:  first,  they  save  soil;  second, 
they  check  erosion ;  third,  they  reduce  flood  dam- 
age; fourth,  they  store  water  and  help  to  sustain 
stream-flow;  fifth,  they  provide  water-holes  for 
fish ;  and  sixth,  they  are  helpful  in  maintaining 
deep  waterways  by  reducing  the  extremes  of  both 
high  and  low  water,  and  also  by  reducing  the 
quantity  of  sediment  carried  down  into  river- 
channels. 

I  had  enjoyed  the  ways  of  "  our  first  engineers  " 
before  it  dawned  upon  me  that  their  works  might 
be  useful  to  man,  and  that  the  beaver  through 
his  constructive  handling  of  the  natural  resources 
might  justly  be  called  a  conservationist.  One  dry 
winter  the  stream  through  the  Moraine  Colony 
ran  low  and  froze  to  the  bottom,  and  the  only 
trout  in  it  that  survived  were  those  in  the  deep 
holes  of  beaver  ponds.  These  ponds  offer  many 
advantages  to  fish  multiplication.  Much  food  ac- 
ceptable to  the  fish  is  swept  into  these  ponds. 
Altogether  a  beaver  pond  is  an  excellent  local 
habitation  for  fish. 

One  gray  day  while  I  was  examining  a  beaver 
colony  there  came  another  demonstration  of  the 
214 


Consertoaftoniert 

usefulness  of  beaver  ponds.  The  easy  rain  of  two 
days  ended  in  a  heavy  downpour —  a  deluge  upon 
the  mountain-side  a  mile  or  so  upstream.  There 
was  almost  nothing  on  this  mountain  either  to  ab- 
sorb or  delay  the  excess  of  water  which  was  speed- 
ily shed  into  the  stream  below.  Flooding  down 
the  stream's  channel  above  the  beaver  pond,  came 
a  roaring  avalanche  of  water,  or  water-slide,  with  a 
rubbish-filled  front  that  was  five  or  six  feet  high. 
This  expanded  as  it  rolled  into  the  pond,  and 
swept  far  out  on  the  sides,  while  the  water-front, 
greatly  lowered,  rushed  over  the  dam.  A  half  a 
dozen  ponds  immediately  below  sufficed  so  to 
check  the  speed  of  this  water  and  so  greatly  to 
reduce  its  volume  that  as  it  poured  over  the  last 
dam  of  this  colony  it  was  no  longer  a  flood. 

The  regulation  of  stream-flow  is  important. 
There  are  only  a  few  rainy  days  each  year,  and 
all  the  water  that  flows  to  the  sea  through  river- 
channels  falls  during  these  few  rainy  days.  The 
instant  the  water  reaches  the  earth  it  is  hurried 
away  by  gravity,  and  unless  there  are  factors  to 
delay  this  run-off,  the  rivers  would  naturally 
contain  water  only  on  the  rainy  days  and  for  a 
215 


little  while  thereafter.  A  beaver  dam  and  pond 
together  form  a  factor  of  importance  in  the  keep- 
ing of  streams  ever  flowing.  The  pond  is  a  reser- 
voir which  catches  and  retains  some  of  the  water 
coming  into  it  during  rainy  days  and  which 
delays  the  water-flow  through  it.  A  beaver  pond 
is  a  leaky  reservoir,  a  kind  of  spring  as  it  were, 
and  if  stored  full  during  rainy  days  the  leakage 
from  it  will  help  maintain  stream-flow  below  dur- 
ing the  dry  weather.  Beaver  works  thus  tend  to 
distribute  to  streams  a  moderate  quantity  of  water 
each  day.  In  other  words  they  spread  out  or  dis- 
tribute the  water  of  the  few  rainy  days  through  all 
the  days  of  the  year. 

A  river  which  flows  steadily  throughout  the 
year  is  of  inestimable  value  to  mankind.  If  floods 
sweep  a  river,  they  do  damage.  If  low  water  comes, 
the  wheels  of  steamers  and  of  factories  cease 
to  move,  and  a  dry  river-channel  means  both 
damage  and  death.  Numerous  beaver  colonies 
along  the  sources  of  countless  streams  that  rise 
in  the  hills  and  the  mountains  would  be  helpful 
in  equalizing  the  flow  of  these  streams.  I  hope 
and  believe  that  before  many  years  every  rushing 
216 


care-free  brook  that  springs  from  a  great  water- 
shed will  be  steadied  in  a  poetic  pond  that  is  made, 
and  that  will  be  maintained  by  our  patient,  per- 
severing friend  the  beaver. 

In  the  West  beaver  are  peculiarly  useful  at 
stream-sources,  where  their  ponds  store  flood 
waters  that  may  later  be  used  for  stock  water  or 
for  irrigation  purposes.  There  are  a  number  of 
localities  in  New  Mexico,  South  Dakota,  and 
elsewhere  in  the  West  where  beaver  receive  the 
utmost  protection  and  encouragement  from 
ranchers,  whose  herds  are  benefited  by  water  con- 
veniently stored  in  beaver  ponds.  A  few  power 
companies  in  the  country  have  commenced  to 
stock  with  beaver  the  watersheds  which  supply 
them  with  water.  They  do  this  because  they  real- 
ize that  countless  small  ponds  or  reservoirs  are 
certain  to  be  constructed  by  these  little  conser- 
vationists. 

Running  water  dissolves  and  erodes  away  the 
earthy  materials  with  which  it  comes  in  contact. 
The  presence  of  a  beaver  pond  and  dam  across 
a  stream's  highway  prevents  the  wearing  and  the 
carrying  away  of  material.  They  not  only  pre- 
21/ 


vent  erosion  or  wearing  away,  but  they  take  soil 
and  sediment  from  the  water  which  comes  to 
them  and  thus  cause  an  upbuilding.  Hence  the 
presence  of  beaver  ponds  along  streams  causes  an 
accumulation  of  sediment  and  soil.  In  time  these 
fill  rocky  channels  and  canons,  widen  and  lengthen 
valleys,  and  thus  extend  the  productive  area  of 
the  earth. 

Beaver  ponds  are  settling-basins,  and  in  them 
are  deposited  the  heavier  matter  brought  in  by 
the  stream.  In  time  the  pond  is  filled,  and  if  the 
beaver  do  not  raise  the  height  of  the  dam,  the 
accumulated  earthy  matter  becomes  covered  with 
flowers  or  forests. 

On  the  headwaters  of  the  Arkansas  River  in 
Colorado  some  placer  miners  found  gold  in  the 
sediment  of  an  inhabited  beaver  pond.  In  wash- 
ing out  the  deposit  of  the  pond  they  broke  into 
an  enormous  amount  of  loose  material  beneath, 
that  apparently  had  been  piled  in  there  by  gla- 
cial action.  This  material,  when  removed,  was 
found  to  have  been  resting  in  an  ancient  beaver 
pond  that  was  about  thirty  feet  below  the  one  at 
the  surface. 

218 


A  few  centuries  ago  there  were  millions  of 
beaver  ponds  in  North  America ;  most  of  these 
were  long  since  filled  with  sediment.  Since  then, 
too,  countless  others  have  been  formed  and  filled. 
This  soil-saving  and  soil-spreading  still  goes  ever 
on  wherever  there  is  a  beaver  pond. 

Many  of  the  richest  tillable  lands  of  New  Eng- 
land were  formed  by  the  artificial  works  of  the 
beaver.  There  are  hundreds  of  valleys  in  Kansas, 
Kentucky,  Missouri,  Illinois,  and  other  States 
whose  rich  surface  was  spread  upon  them  by  the 
activities  of  beaver  through  generations.  In  the 
Southern  States  and  in  the  mountains  of  the 
West,  the  numbers  of  beaver  meadows  are  beyond 
computation.  The  aggregate  area  of  rich  soil- 
deposits  in  the  United  States  for  which  we  are 
indebted  to  the  beaver  is  beyond  belief,  and  prob- 
ably amounts  to  millions  of  acres. 

The  beaver  have  thus  prepared  the  way  for 
forests  and  meadows,  orchards  and  grain-fields, 
homes  and  school-houses.  In  the  golden  age  of 
the  beaver,  their  countless  colonies  clustered  all 
over  our  land.  These  primeval  folk  then  gathered 
their  harvest.  Innumerable  beaver  ponds,  which 
219 


3n 

then  shone  everywhere  in  the  sun,  slowly  filled 
with  deposited,  outspreading  soil,  —  and  vanished. 
Elm  avenues  now  arch  where  the  low-growing 
willow  drooped  across  the  canal,  and  a  populous 
village  stands  upon  the  seat  of  a  primitive  and 
forgotten  colony. 

A  live  beaver  is  more  valuable  to  mankind 
than  a  dead  one.  As  trappers  in  all  sections  of 
the  country  occasionally  catch  a  beaver,  it  is 
probable  that  there  still  are  straggling  ones  scat- 
tered along  streams  all  the  way  from  salt  water 
up  to  timber-line,  twelve  thousand  feet  above  sea- 
level.  These  remaining  beaver  may  be  extermin- 
ated ;  but  if  protected  they  would  multiply  and 
colonize  stream-sources.  Here  they  would  prac- 
tise conservation.  Their  presence  would  reduce 
river  and  harbor  appropriations  and  make  rivers 
more  manageable,  useful,  and  attractive.  It  would 
pay  us  to  keep  beaver  colonies  in  the  heights. 
Beaver  would  help  keep  America  beautiful.  A 
beaver  colony  in  the  wilds  gives  a  touch  of  ro- 
mance and  a  rare  charm  to  the  outdoors.  The 
works  of  the  beaver  have  ever  intensely  interested 
the  human  mind.  Beaver  works  may  do  for 
220 


Consertoafiomstf 

children  what  schools,  sermons,  companions,  and 
even  home  sometimes  fail  to  do,  —  develop  the 
power  to  think.  No  boy  or  girl  can  become  inti- 
mately acquainted  with  the  ways  and  works  of 
these  primitive  folk  without  having  the  eyes  of 
observation  opened,  and  acquiring  a  permanent 
interest  in  the  wide  world  in  which  we  live.  A 
race  which  can  produce  mothers  and  fathers  as 
noble  as  those  beaver  in  the  Grand  Canon  who 
offered  their  lives  hoping  thereby  to  save  their 
children  is  needed  on  this  earth.  The  beaver  is 
the  Abou-ben-Adhem  of  the  wild.  May  his  tribe 
increase ! 


THE   END 


kaC  Qlofc 


REAVER  literature  is  scarce.  The  book  which 
easily  excels  is  "  The  American  Beaver 
and  his  Works,"  by  Lewis  H.  Morgan.  Samuel 
Hearne  has  an  excellent  paper  concerning  the 
beaver  in  "  Journey  from  Prince  of  Wales  Fort 
to  the  Northern  Ocean,"  published  in  1  795.  Good 
accounts  of  the  beaver  are  given  in  the  following 
books  :  "  Beavers:  their  Ways,"  by  Joseph  Henry 
Taylor;  "  Castorologia,"  by  Horace  T.  Martin; 
"  Shaggycoat,"  by  Clarence  Hawkes;  "The  House 
in  the  Water,"  by  Charles  G.  D.  Roberts  ;  and 
"  Forest  Neighbors,"  by  William  Davenport  Hul- 
bert.  There  are  also  admirable  papers  by  Ernest 
Thompson  Seton  in  his  "  Life-Histories  of  North- 
ern Animals,"  by  W.  T.  Hornaday  in  his  "  Amer- 
ican Natural  History,"  and  by  Baillie-Grohman 
in  "  Camps  in  the  Rockies." 


Accidents,  144. 

Age,  14,  193- 

Air,  blanket  over  pond,  202,  203. 

American  Fur  Company,  49. 

Arkansas  River,  218. 

Astor,  John  Jacob,  49. 

Attitudes,  6. 

Audubon,  John  James,  53. 

Autumn  activities,  beginning  of,  200. 

Bad  Lands,  65. 

Basins,  food,  108.  See  also  Wells. 

Beaver,  a  tame,  22-25. 

Beaver,  aged,  of  the  Spruce  Tree  Col- 
ony, 83,  84,  95,  96 ;  of  Lily  Lake, 
102-105;  migrating  to  the  Moraine 
Colony,  167,  168. 

Bedding,  122,  123, 

Bierstadt  Moraine,  140. 

Bobcat,  35. 

Burrows,  no,  in  ;  a  substitute  for 
houses,  127, 128. 

Canada,  emblem  of,  43. 

Canals,  77,  78,  88,  141,  145-149,  187; 
at  Lily  Lake,  103,  104 ;  importance, 
105  ;  use  of  excavated  material,  105, 
1 06;  forms  of,  1 06,  107;  system  at 
Three  Forks,  Mont.,  107-111;  dug 
in  winter,  206. 

Castoreum,  43,  44. 

Chasm  Lake,  142. 

Civilization,  the  beaver's  influence  on, 
47-49- 

Color,  8. 


Colorado  River,  25,  50. 

Cooperation,  171. 

Coyotes,  23,  102,  161-163,  l66- 

Cry,  27. 

Cutting  trees,  methods  of,  10-12,  31, 
32;  intelligence  shown  in,  57,  91; 
operations  observed,  86,  90-96;  ac- 
cidents in,  144. 

Dams,  materials,  65-67 ;  construction, 
66,  67 ;  uses,  69 ;  growth,  69,  70 ;  new 
and  old,  70,  71 ;  discharge  from,  71, 
72 ;  not  all  beaver  build,  72 ;  thor- 
oughfares, 73 ;  effect  on  topography, 
73,  74 ;  shape,  75-77 ;  an  interesting 
dam,  76-78 ;  waterproofing,  78 ;  di- 
mensions of  a  long  dam,  78,  79 ;  di- 
mensions of  other  dams,  86 ;  across 
canals,  108-110 ;  the  dead-wood  dam, 
143-150;  across  a  drainage  ditch, 
180,  181 ;  across  an  irrigation  ditch, 
189,  190;  a  homesteader's  dam  com- 
pleted by  beaver,  192,  193 ;  effect  on 
stream-flow,  213-217. 

Day,  working  by,  33,  94,  156. 

Death,  14. 

Ditch,  struggle  over  a,  179-182. 

Ditches.  See  Canals. 

Diver,  the  young  beaver,  22-25. 

Domestication,  25. 

Dunraven,  Lord,  179. 

Ears,  7. 

Enemies,  14;  times  of  danger  from, 
98. 


225 


Engineering,  i39-'5°- 

Erosion,  checked  by  beaver,  214,  217, 

218. 

Errors,  67,  68. 
Estes  Park,  179. 
Europe,  the  beaver  in,  40,  41. 
Exploration,  168,  169. 
Eyesight,  8. 

Fabulous  accounts,  53. 

Feet,  uses  of,  5,  6 ;  form  of,  8. 

Feigning  injury,  25,  26. 

Felling  trees.  See  Cutting  trees. 

Fence  posts,  30. 

Fighting,  19,  20,  34,  35. 

Fire,  158-163. 

Fish,  water-holes  for,  214. 

Flat-top,  a  beaver  pioneer,  175,  176, 

'83-I93- 
Floods,  206, 207  ;  damage  prevented  by 

beaver,  214,  216. 
Food,  10,  84,  205. 

Food-piles,  12,  13,  88,  89,  97,  150, 169. 
Fossil  beaver,  40. 
Fox,  199. 
Fruit  trees,  30. 

Geographical  distribution,  40-42, 49, 50. 

Gold,  218. 

Grand  CaSon,  25,  50. 

Hands,  uses  of,  5 ;  form  of,  8. 

Harvest,  a  year's,  97  ;  a  large,  169. 

Harvest-gathering,  83-98,148-150,157, 
158. 

Hearing,  8. 

Hearne,  Samuel,  quoted,  53. 

History,  the  beaver  in,  41-44. 

Homesteader,  a  friendly,  190-193. 

Houses,  building,  3 ;  occupants,  21 ;  di- 
mensions, 86,  119,  120,  130,  131 ; 
mud  plastering,  97,  123-125;  con- 
struction, 119-123,  130,  131;  en- 


trances, 119,  120;  situation,  120, 
125-127;  burrows  a  substitute  for, 
127,  128;  a  typical  house,  130,  131; 
ventilation,  132;  enlargement,  160- 
171;  security,  197,  198;  shaped  to 
meet  floods,  207. 
Hudson's  Bay  Company,  the,  48. 

Ice,  a  trouble  of  beaver  existence,  126, 
127;  a  catastrophe  caused  by,  184- 
186  ;  on  the  pond,  200,  202-206 ; 
casualties  caused  by,  207. 

Indians,  their  legends  about  the  beaver, 
39- 

Individuality,  35,  67. 

Industry,  36. 

Intelligence,  46,  57-60. 

Irrigation-ditches,  31. 

Island  Colony,  harvesting  methods  of, 
92,  93- 

Jefferson  River,  n,  78,  107,  108. 

Kingsford,  William,  his  History  of 
Canada,  48. 

Land,  beaver  seen  on,  191,  192. 

Leadership,  20. 

Legends,  39. 

Lewis  and  Clark,  42. 

Life,  the  beaver's,  14-16. 

Lily  Lake,  beaver  at,  101-105  5  beaver 
house  at,  119  ;  the  pioneer  beaver  of, 
175-193 ;  description  of,  178. 

Lily  Mountain,  182. 

Lion,  mountain,  160-162,  166. 

Local  attachment,  141,  142. 

Long,  Stephen  Harriman,  his  Journal, 

33- 
Longfellow,    Henry    Wadsworth,    his 

Hiawatha  quoted,  60,  6l. 
Long's  Peak,  140,  153. 
Love  ditty,  27. 


226 


Majors,  Alexander,  his  Seventy  Years 
on  the  Frontier,  59,  60. 

Martin,  Horace  T.,  49. 

Mating,  27. 

Medicine  Bow  Mountains,  197. 

Migration,  20,  21,  132,  133,  141,  161- 
163,  167-169,  175-177,  182,  183. 

Mischief,  30,  31. 

Moraine  Colony,  engineering  of,  139, 
142-150;  discovery  and  observation, 
of,  153-158  ;  homes  destroyed  by  fire, 
158,  159  ;  migrating,  161-163  >  new 
site,  163,  164 ;  old  site  resettled,  165 ; 
later  fortunes,  166-171. 

Morgan,  Lewis  H.,  his  American  Bea- 
ver and  his  Works,  54,  55,  58. 

Night,  working  at,  33. 
Northwestern  Fur  Company,  49. 

Old,  the,  34. 
Outcasts,  34. 
Ouzel,  water,  199. 

Parasites,  14. 

Physical  make-up,  5-9,  68. 

Pipestone  Creek,  n. 

Place-names  taken  from  the  beaver,  42, 

43- 

Play,  29,  156,  157. 

Ponds,  early  abundance,  42;  size,  65, 
86 ;  uses,  68,  69 ;  chains  or  clusters 
of,  74  ;  depth,  107 ;  canals  in  bottom, 
107 ;  spring-filled,  113, 114  ;  lowering 
the  level  under  ice,  202,  203  ;  drain- 
ing, 208,  209  ;  effect  on  stream-flow, 
213-217  ;  leaky  reservoirs,  216. 

Population,  changes  in,  46,  47. 

Protection,  50,  217,  220,  221- 

Reason,  evidences  of,  57,  58. 
Romanes,  George  J.,  on  the  beaver,  58, 
59- 


Sanitation,  208. 

Sawtooth  Mountains,  66. 

Sediment/a  problem  of  beaver  life,  125, 

126. 

Sheep,  mountain,  192. 
Size,  7. 

Skins,  43,  44,  48,  49. 
Sleep,  122. 
Slides,  87,  112,  199. 
4>mell,  sense  of,  7. 
Snake  River,  25. 
Soil,  the  beaver's  conservation  of,  214, 

217-220. 
Sounds  and  silence,  19,  20,  23,  26,  27, 

i33»  '34- 

Springs,  use  of,  204. 
Spruce  Tree  Colony,  harvest  time  with, 

83-98  ;  tunnels  in,  113-115. 
Stream-flow,  effect  of  beaver  on,  72- 

74,  213-217. 
Strength,  9. 

Subways.  See  Tunnels. 
Swimming,  method  of,  6. 

Tail,  uses  of,  5,  6,  n  ;  form  and  cover- 
ing, 8;  signalling  with,  24,  31,  96; 
fabulous  accounts  of  the  uses  of, 

53- 

Teeth,  7-9. 

Three  Forks,  Montana,  42,  79 ;  canal 
system  at,  107-111. 

Trails,  in,  112. 

Transportation  of  dam  and  food  ma- 
terial, 86-90,  92,  93 ;  canals  used  in, 
106-115;  tra''s  anc*  slides  used  in, 
in,  112,  115  ;  tunnels  used  in,  112- 
115. 

Trappers,  164,  189-191. 

Traps,  35,  189. 

Trees,  cutting.  See  Cutting  trees. 

Trimming  trees,  12,  96. 

Trout,  205,  206. 

Tunnels,  85, 112-115,  '98,  203,  206. 


227 


Water.  Ste  Stream-flow. 
Water-ouzel,  199. 
Water-supply,  85,  86. 
Weather-wisdom,  44-47. 
Weight,  7. 

Wells,    food,  103,    104.    See  also  Ba- 
sins. 

Whistle,  26,  27. 
Wildcat,  35. 


Willow  Creek,  176. 

Wind  River,  102,  175,  182,  188. 

Winter,  beaver  life  in,  197-209. 

Wolves,  gray,  191,  197. 

Wood,  dead,  143,  144. 

Work,  accomplished  by  beaver,  3-5. 

Young,  birth  and  care  of,  27, 28  ;  growth 
and  play  of,  28. 


(Cbe  flitoetfibe  prcj* 

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